The stretch between Christmas and New Year’s yielded some highs and lows in local college basketball.
Northwestern (11-2 before Saturday’s game against Michigan State) cracked the national rankings for the first time since 1969, reaching No. 25 in the Associated Press poll. Nearby Loyola was off to a 10-2 start, racking up 10 wins before January for the first time since 1966.
Then there is DePaul (7-6). The once-mighty Blue Demons’ loss to Pittsburgh in their Big East opener was their 20th straight in conference regular-season play. The Demons are averaging 60.6 points a game while shooting 39.9 percent from the floor and 53.8 percent from the foul line. Average attendance at 18,500-seat Allstate Arena: 7,259.
That is tickets sold, not bodies in the seats. The announced crowd of 7,023 for a Dec. 16 game was more like 1,000.