How many games can one team miss? DePaul senior Charlie Moore isn’t trying to find out

The Blue Demons are simply trying to have a season — any season — before the calendar runs out. Meanwhile, their leader is trying to stay strong. “I can’t be down,” he said. “Right now is not the time.”

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DePaul’s Charlie Moore last season, when playing games could be taken for granted.

AP Photos

Charlie Moore has a game to play Saturday.

At least he thinks he does.

“You never know,” DePaul’s senior point guard said a day before the Blue Demons’ date with Seton Hall at Wintrust Arena.

Let’s get this out there and over with right now: Moore, 22, is well aware that many of his fellow citizens have suffered more and had it worse during a pandemic that just won’t quit. He is sensitive and thoughtful on the subject and — can we leave it at this? — gets it.

But, man, this season has been one punch in the gut after another for Moore’s team. Not that its tough, 5-11 leader, who was the 2016 Sun-Times Player of the year at Morgan Park, allows himself to show his disappointment.

“I can’t be down or show weakness,” he said, “because right now is not the time.”

Right now, the Blue Demons are simply trying to have a season — any season — before the calendar runs out.

Three games — that’s all DePaul had gotten in heading into a weekend when many teams around the country were already into the teens in games played. No major-conference team’s schedule had been hit harder. The Blue Demons opened the season roughly a month late, after their first 10 games were canceled or postponed. Two more were postponed over the last week.

Fair or not, DePaul is seen by some as a team that failed to handle its responsibilities on the COVID-19 front. After all, it must have failed, right? How else to explain things going off the rails to such an extent?

It’s a rather bitter pill for someone like Moore, who says he has not tested positive at any point and that “a lot” of teammates can say the same.

“I just feel like it’s part of life,” he said. “Even though this is not something we’re proud of and like to be a part of, it’s something we have to go through every day.”

Along the way, there has been one letdown after another. Maybe the most demoralizing one came Dec. 6, when the Blue Demons were on the bus and about to leave for the arena to visit Iowa State in the Big 12-Big East Battle. After a handful of games had been scratched, it would be their season debut and a high-profile one at that. They’d already completed a morning shootaround and eaten their team meal. They were excited.

“We’d been working so hard,” Moore said. “We’d finally made it. We were about to play and finally show all our hard work.”

But then?

“They kicked us off the bus.”

Someone in the program had tested positive. Again.

At St. John’s last weekend, they were even closer — one measly hour — to game time. Moore was finished with his pregame routine and chilling at his locker when several teammates walked into the room at once.

“Aww, man,” he heard himself mutter.

He knew what it meant. Another game disappeared into the mist. One more opportunity to live the dream, lost.

The Blue Demons showered and dressed. Before they left the arena, though, they wound up on the court. They played H-O-R-S-E. They had free-throw contests. They heaved up more halfcourt shots than they could count.

“It was actually fun,” Moore said. “Fun bonding with the guys like that. A bunch of laughing, joking around. I feel like we built some chemistry.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to find out? Moore started at California and moved to Kansas before ending up at DePaul, coming home in large part to be near his father, Curtis, who suffered a stroke in 2015. But basketball games — a bunch of them, ideally with family and friends in attendance — were supposed to be part of the deal.

“It’s still fun just being with the guys,” he said. “That’s the fun thing. And basketball isn’t completely over with. I wouldn’t know what [to] do without basketball.”

Saturday is game day. Win or lose, it’ll be a joy to be out on the floor.

Let’s hope.

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