Team: DePaul Blue Demons
2025-26 Record: 8-24, 5-15 Big East
2025-26 Big East Finish: 10th, one game behind a tie for eighth place, one game ahead of Xavier
Final 2025-26 Rankings
NET: #203
Her Hoop Stats: #253
BartTorvik.com: #170
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Postseason? Only a 69-55 loss to Providence in the 7/10 first round game of the Big East conference tournament.
Notable Departures: It’s not Almost Everyone, but I think this qualifies as Dang Near Everyone?
Let’s start with the two women who were running out of eligibility anyway, which means that DePaul knew they weren’t coming back. Neither one was a critical load bearing piece last season with neither one even getting to 19 minutes a game on average. Now, Michelle Ojo was still DePaul’s #3 scorer this season at 7.9 points per game, even though she didn’t play in two games and only started in 17 of the 30 she did play in. Meg Newman was the #2 rebounder on the squad at 5.6 a night, but she missed five games and only started 13 times as well.
Katie Novik is the biggest loss from the roster, departing one year after transferring in from Morehead State. She was DePaul’s leading scorer, rebounder, and passer, going for 12.2 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.5 assists a night. She started in all 31 of her appearances, and while she didn’t play in every game, she did end up leading the team in starts. That pretty much makes her DePaul’s most consistent player across the board, but now she’s at South Florida.
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Natiah Nelson went from regular rotation player as a freshman for DePaul to appearing in every game and starting 29 minutes this season, but she elected to bounce home to Toledo now. She was the Blue Demons’ #2 scorer, and yes, as you’ve figured out, they’ve lost all of their top three. Alayna West appeared in every game as a freshman last season, and chipped in 7.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.3 assists. Given the overall lack of offense going on around here, that’s not too bad, which probably goes a ways towards explaining why the Wisconsinite is now at Alabama, a team that’s fresh off their fourth straight NCAA bid.
And finally, I have left Aizhanique Mayo for the very end because yes, somehow, over five years later, we are still telling her story. To review: Committed and signed at Marquette, showed up on campus, dipped right before the season started, transferred at semester to Iona, never played there, followed Billi Chambers to Xavier after the spring semester, averaged 10.1 points as a super sub for a Musketeers squad that went 1-27, saw her minutes fall the next year as Xavier went 7-24, transferred to DePaul, saw her minutes fall again as the Blue Demons finished one game ahead of Xavier in the standings but worse overall, and now the Connecticut native is at Tulane…. where the Green Wave just went 11-20 and haven’t made the NCAA tournament since 2015. I believe that she has to be done after this season, as her weird two school transfer/redshirt year now counts as a year of eligibility, but also I will not be surprised to see her pop up at Sacred Heart or something next year.
Notable Returners: DePaul has two players returning from last year’s roster, as Devin Hagemann, the only Blue Demon to average over 30 minutes a game last season, will miss 2026-27 due to a torn ACL. This will be the third of her now five seasons of eligibility. Both of the returning players did appear in all 32 games last season, so there is that. Ally Timm was the better scorer of the pair at 7.4 points per game, but she only started four times and averaged 21.1 minutes per game. Gina Davorija started 24 times, but somehow managed to only average 16.4 minutes per game. You can go ahead and do the math on her output when Timm was better.
DePaul technically also returns Kate Clarke. She missed all of last year due to injury after only playing 11 of the last 14 games of the season in 2024-25, which was also because of injury keeping her out until mid-January. In 43 games for DePaul, she averages 10.4 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game while shooting over 36% on threes. Can she get back to the 24-25 performance of 12/2/2 in nearly 32 minutes a game? Is she healthy enough to do that? In theory she could have been their best player last season and that absolutely could have changed their fortunes at least a little bit…. but if she’s at 85% capacity for this campaign? Well, that might not be great for DePaul….. but also anything helpful is going to be a benefit to the Blue Demons right now.
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Key Additions: DePaul has one freshman, and I am curious as to why Mikaia Litza (5’8″ freshman guard, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin) is joining the Blue Demons. Well, not so much the why, but really more the “hey, how much effort went in here, just curious” kind of thing. All I’m saying is that she’s from Wauwatosa and won a state title in 2025 and set a Tosa East single season and career assists record. Feels like Marquette should have tried pretty hard, right? Maybe? Go to DePaul if you want to get a little bit away from home, I guess, I just want to know that Cara Consuegra tried.
Speaking trying to recruit someone, one of DePaul’s five transfers — I refuse to count the former Wisconsin softball player as a Key Addition until the season starts — is Louis Volker (6’1″ senior forward, Purcellville, Virginia), and yes, that’s Lee Volker’s little sister. She averaged 6.0 points and 4.7 rebounds with 34% three-point shooting as a junior for George Mason last season, and all I’m saying is that Marquette has three open roster spots. Does DePaul have four and therefore more of a chance for Volker to play? Sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be surly about it.
That leaves the other four transfers who are all in the same boat as Volker in that they come to DePaul on their fourth year of eligibility….. which is fascinating because the NCAA didn’t officially approve fifth years of eligibility for these women until late June and the last one was announced on June 2nd. They’re all going to be allowed to stick around Lincoln Park for another year after 2026-27, but there’s a chance that none of them signed up for two years when they committed to the Blue Demons. We’ll see how that goes.
Kaliyah Dillard (6’0″ senior forward, Las Vegas, Nevada) averaged 13 minutes a night in 31 appearances with 21 starts as a redshirt sophomore for San Jose State last season. That’s the nicest thing we can say about her playing history, because I didn’t say that the Spartans went 4-28. Shoot. Nyah Lowery (6’0″ senior guard, Sacramento, California) has appeared in 94 games in three seasons at Pacific, getting her first eight starts of her career this past season. For her career, she’s averaging 4.2 points and 2.3 rebounds, and she’s shooting just 29% from long range on 240 career attempts.
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Zoey Ward (6’0″ senior forward, Gastonia, North Carolina) and Doyinsola Lijirin (6’3″ senior forward, Ondo State, Nigeria) both had breakout seasons at their old schools last season. Ward’s third season at Iona had her going for 13.8 points and 8.8 rebounds a game, while Doyinsola added 11.1 points and 7.3 rebounds to the stat sheet in her third season at Wagner. I would figure that we’re going to see a lot of both of those women for DePaul this year between their experience level and their track record of contribution.
By the way: Wagner lists her as Lijirin Doyinsola Modesayor. That’s what’s on her Basketball Reference page. DePaul lists her as Doyinsola Lijirin. That’s what they put in the press release announcing her signing. There’s a quote from head coach Jill Pizzotti calling her “Doy.” Someone’s wrong here, and I don’t know whether it’s the first team to put her name on a roster or the team that changed it. This is the DePaul Vibe Check, so I went with their organization in the previous paragraph, but I wanted to note the slight challenge in chasing down her playing history.
Coach: Jill Pizzotti, entering her second official season as DePaul head coach and 12th as a Division 1 head coach. She also has a season as interim head coach for the Blue Demons to land her career record at 134-210 and her DePaul record at 21-43.
Outlook: I’m going to frame the outlook on the Blue Demons this way, other than noting that they’re coming off their first single digit wins season in program history, the worst winning percentage in program history, and a new program record fourth consecutive losing season.
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On August 3, DePaul announced “The DePaul 500,” an initiative to sell 500 new women’s basketball season tickets by the start of the season. I want to share with you the quotes from athletic director Dewayne Peevy and head coach Jill Pizzotti. First, Peavy.
“Our women’s basketball program is building toward something special, and we want our fans right there with us,” said DeWayne Peevy, DePaul’s Senior Vice President and Director of Athletics. “The DePaul 500 is a direct invitation to be part of it, one seat, one supporter at a time. We can’t wait to see you at Wintrust Arena.”
And now Pizzotti:
“There’s nothing like the energy of a packed Wintrust Arena the night of a game,” Pizzotti said. “I want our fans to feel that atmosphere with us at every game this season, and to really get to know this team. That connection between our fans and our players is what makes DePaul special.”
What fantasy land are these two living in? I get that this is a press release, and it’s a public relations statement, and you’re going to say nice and positive things in said release. In what reality is the worst record in program history to cap a program record run of four straight losing seasons “building toward something special,” Mr. Peevy? And how would Pizzotti know anything about the energy of a packed Wintrust Arena? The attendance numbers are public! They averaged 2,210 fans in a 10,000 seat arena last season, and that is propped up by 9,500 school kids that got in for free against Northwestern and 6,277 Connecticut fans. 2,180 the year before, again propped up by the same culprits.
I have no problem with publicly campaigning to sell season tickets. I have a problem with putting out a press release that is operating under the guise that things are going completely well under the direction of Pizzotti. They were already starting to go south before Doug Bruno suffered the stroke that took him out of coaching perhaps he was ready to leave, as the Blue Demons haven’t made the NCAA tournament since 2022 and haven’t been to consecutive tourneys since their 17 year run ended in 2019.
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“Make sure you can get in to watch a team on the rise in a packed arena!” That’s what they said. None of that is true. The faster DePaul stops lying about themselves and figures out what to do about their head coach that has had two winning seasons in 11 campaigns in charge and none since 2003, the better everything will be.
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