Pizzotti ready to guide DePaul women’s basketball

Doug Bruno’s name is inextricably linked with the DePaul women’s basketball program.

The four Sweet Sixteen appearances? He was at the helm for all of them. The five Big East tournament championships? Those teams were coached by Bruno.

The court in Wintrust Arena even bears his name. So when Jill M. Pizzotti was asked how the program would look different now that she’s the Blue Demons’ head coach, her answer was short and to the point.

“Quite honestly, I don’t want it to look a lot different,” Pizzotti said. “The road map to having success has been written.”

But if Bruno, whose 759 wins at DePaul are the 12th-most by a women’s college basketball coach, was the one writing the road map, Pizzotti has been the one watching the road for the past decade. She joined the program in 2011 as an assistant and was named Associate Head Coach in 2014. Last season, with Bruno not on the sidelines due to health issues, Pizzotti led the Blue Demons in an interim role and piloted the team to a sixth-place finish in the Big East.

“This past season … Jill demonstrated poise, leadership and a steady hand,” said DeWayne Peevy, DePaul’s athletic director. “She proved not just to me, but to our student athletes and this entire community, that she was the best person for the job.”

Pizzotti is familiar with the community, as she grew up in nearby Lombard. During her youth basketball days, she played for the very man she’d someday coach alongside.

“Like many women in the community, I was a Doug Bruno camper,” Pizzotti said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I hold the highest level of respect, admiration, gratitude and love for Coach Bruno.”

Pizzotti also called Bruno a mentor and a hero, and said she originally took the assistant job at DePaul to work for him. While it might be difficult for her to match Bruno’s impact on the Chicago area at first, she’s planning on keeping DePaul women’s basketball a pillar of the community.

“It’s always a goal of DePaul University to serve others and to be out in the community,” Pizzotti said. “I think when the community members have an opportunity to meet our players and get to know them, they’re going to also become fans of them.”

As a former Chicago basketball player herself, Pizzotti is well aware of the importance of retaining local talent. And as DePaul’s lead recruiter since her arrival in 2011, Pizzotti wants to make sure she’s able to convince that local talent to stay in the area.

“There’s a lot of talent in Chicago, and we’re going to work to keep them in Chicago,” Pizzotti said. “We feel like we have a lot to sell for DePaul University … we’ll continue to reach as far as we need to reach to have a successful program.”

Luckily for Pizzotti, the man responsible for so much of the Blue Demons’ historical success will be sticking around the program. Starting in May, Bruno will begin his role as Special Assistant to the Director of Athletics, meaning he’ll be around if Pizzotti needs some advice.

“Just being able to talk to him after games this year was really beneficial,” Pizzotti said. “He’s still around and he’s still very much watching over the DePaul women’s basketball program. I think (that) will benefit us.”

But all the final decisions will now run through Pizzotti, for the first time since she was the head coach at St. Louis University from 1995 through 2005. While she only made one postseason appearance at the school, she’s confident the lessons from her 10-year tenure will serve her well as she takes the reins at DePaul.

“A couple huge lessons for me … you’ve got to get a little bit out of your comfort zone,” Pizzotti said. “And I think it’s just very important to maybe give up a drill here or there to just sit and talk with your team. We will build a player-focused program.”

But even with all the new focuses Pizzotti will bring to the Blue Demons, she knows the best methods of winning at DePaul already have been established.

“We will return to our ‘DePaul Ball’ up-tempo style of play and be relentless on the defensive end of the floor,” Pizzotti said. “Our staff will work to take our program to greater heights grounded in the strength of our past.”