The script is now as familiar as DePaul’s season is long–and long lost. The Blue Demons start smartly and, for long minutes, keep a game close. Then, pressure mounting, they crumble as easily as a hot dog wrapper and fall far behind. Finally, from deep in a crater, they start scrambling again and do enough to make another defeat look borderline respectable.
Through all of last season and much of this one, that is the routine they have followed, and that is what they did again Tuesday night when confronted with Charlotte at the Allstate Arena. Two minutes into the second half, the Blue Demons were down two and had the ball with a chance to tie. Then, after a turnover started them on their way, they were outscored by 10 over the next five minutes and fell behind by a dozen. Finally, from that hole, DePaul (8-11, 1-7 in Conference-USA) rallied and so suffered a less-than-unsightly 97-83 loss to the 49ers (13-6, 7-1).
“They basically started hitting a lot of shots,” Blue Demons forward Lance Williams (16 points) said when it was over. “They controlled the game and once again we went into one of those slumps where we missed shots and turned the ball over.”
“Another tough game,” associate head coach Tracy Dildy said. “We had a couple of breakdowns again.”
Dildy again took the place of DePaul head coach Pat Kennedy, who missed his third straight game with a bulging disk and bone spurs that are pressing against his sciatic nerve.
“We’re going to take it day-to-day,” team physician Preston Wolin said of Kennedy’s condition. “Surgery is a possibility, but most of the time this can be resolved without surgery.”
Williams and Imari Sawyer (12 points) were DePaul’s early sparks against Charlotte, but then the 49ers adjusted their defense and muted both. Williams, constantly double-teamed after halftime, scored only four points in the second half and Sawyer scored none while getting special attention from the 49er guards.
Marlon Brooks, who ended with a team-high 18, stepped up in their places, yet he was hardly enough to counter Charlotte’s array of scorers. Jobey Thomas, with 28 points, was the best of them and he nailed one of his six three-pointers during his team’s telling run. Then came forward Butter Johnson (17), who scored five in that stretch, and guard Demon Brown (14), who dropped two three-pointers to end that run.
Cam Stephens (16 points) and Curtis Nash (11) also finished in double figures for the 49ers, and they were more than enough to finish off the Blue Demons.
