INDIANAPOLIS — It’s about 45 minutes after DePaul’s game against Butler men’s basketball ended and junior guard C.J. Gunn is still on the floor at Hinkle Fieldhouse catching up with the 40 to 50 friends and family members who came to support the former Lawrence North star.
Gunn’s support section is hard to miss. His father Chris is sporting a shirt with his son’s image on it. Several people are wearing shirts with Gunn’s No. 11 on the back, and halftime looks like a small family reunion with supporters taking pictures together and celebrating the homecoming of the talented guard.
“It means so much,” the younger Gunn said of having people come out to watch him play. “The people who came into this journey with me, I started my life with them. Seeing them and having that support, it gives me that extra boost I need when I go out and play. Any time I get the opportunity to put on a show for my family and friends, I’m going to take full advantage of it.”
Gunn came to Hinkle playing the best basketball of his career. Last Friday, he scored a career-high 31 points in an 80-75 win over Marquette. The strong scoring performance earned Gunn Big East Player of the Week honors for the first time. He’s the first Blue Demon to win the award since Javan Johnson in December of 2022. Gunn’s seven 3-pointers against the Golden Eagles were the fourth-most in DePaul history.
Against Butler, Gunn continued his hot shooting in the first half. He started his scoring with a contested turnaround jumper over Jamie Kaiser Jr.’s outstretched arm. After a Theo Justin-Pierre 3-pointer, Gunn followed with a triple of his own in the face of a strong close out by Kaiser. Gunn added two more jump shots over Butler defenders, scoring 10 points in the first nine minutes of the game. He finished the first half with 14 points, two rebounds and two assists.
In the second half, Butler forward Michael Ajayi took over the defensive assignment on Gunn and helped keep him in check. Gunn did not make a 3-pointer in the second half, scoring just two points after halftime.
“They just paid him a lot of attention,” DePaul coach Chris Holtmann said of Gunn’s second-half struggles. “Anytime you’re coming off the game that he came off of … they did a good job paying a lot of attention to him.
“I thought he made some really nice passes at times. I thought he found some guys. I thought he made some good plays. I was proud of him for that. He just didn’t bring it defensively and that’s where he’s got to get a lot better.”
Butler exploited DePaul’s poor defense in the second half, outscoring the Blue Demons 54-43. Azavier “Stink” Robinson and Finley Bizjack sparked a 16-3 second-half run, giving the Bulldogs control of the game.
The loss moves DePaul’s record to 1-4 on the road. All four losses have come during conference play. Holtmann is well aware of how difficult it is to win on the road in the Big East and, specifically, how difficult it is to win at Hinkle. Holtman came to Butler as an assistant under Brandon Miller in 2013. He took over as the interim head coach after Miller took a medical leave of absence, became Butler’s full-time head coach in January of 2015 and coached two more seasons before leaving for Ohio State in 2017.
“This place changed my career. It changed my family, it changed our lives,” said Holtmann, now in his second year at DePaul. “The quality of the relationships that we built here. This place changed us in a lot of ways, much for the better in so many ways.
“But I’m at a place now that I absolutely love and I’m trying to build a program that we’re super excited about.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: C.J. Gunn back home with Blue Demons vs Butler
