The game began with LeVar Seals exhorting his DePaul teammates in the layup line shouting, “Let’s go!” and sharing high fives. It ended with the Blue Demons’ fans joining in the fun.
In between, the Blue Demons handled Marquette 85-72 Thursday night before a season-high crowd of 14,050 at the Allstate Arena.
With guard Sammy Mejia scoring a career-high 26 points, the Blue Demons outplayed their fiercest Conference USA rivals all game.
The contest featured the league’s top two scorers in DePaul’s Quemont Greer (21.4 points per game) and Marquette’s Travis Diener (20.8). Surprisingly, both were held to 15 points and fouled out.
It was the supporting cast of Mejia, who only three weeks ago was on a leave of absence, and one-time Chicago high school stars Lorenzo Thompson and Marlon Brumfield in the frontcourt, who made the difference.
The Blue Demons (11-4, 3-1) trailed for only one minute in the first half against the 25th-ranked Golden Eagles. Marquette (14-3, 2-2) maintains a 9.2 per game rebounding margin, but the DePaul outrebounded its rivals 37-34 with an astonishing 21 offensive rebounds.
Thompson, who had a career-high 17 points in 17 minutes with five rebounds, and Brumfield, who chipped in a career-equaling 10 points and seven rebounds, tipped the all-important stat DePaul’s way.
The Blue Demons forced 19 turnovers, which led to 22 points. Mejia, who left the team briefly at the end of 2004 for personal reasons, said he was “going through some things.”
On this night he was going through a hot streak, hitting 9 of 15 shots with five assists and six rebounds.
“I just think I got lucky in the beginning,” Mejia said. “I hit a layup in the first minute. You feel you’re on a roll already.”
A key for DePaul was shutting down Travis Diener in the battle of the Diener family. His cousin Drake (12 points), also of the Fond du Lac, Wis. clan, said the game plan was to “not let him get off.”
DePaul put the 6-foot-5-inch Seals and his long arms on the 6-1 Diener. That worked well. Long-armed 6-6 Mejia covered Travis Diener, too, and even 6-7 Marcus Heard took a turn.
Unforeseen was the contribution of the 6-8 Thompson, who is regarded as a team jokester who keeps players loose, but who has had few opportunities to truly shine. That changed Thursday night when he had 15 points in the second half and admitted he was having as much fun as it looked.
“I always try to have fun,” Thompson said. “I’m the type of guy who tries to keep everybody laughing. Tonight I was just playing my role.”
His role pretty much kept all the Blue Demon fans happy. At game’s end, DePaul students flooded the court, patting players on the back and banging thunder sticks together.
“It’s great to see the students come out like that,” senior Drake Diener said. “I think it’s the best turnout since I’ve been here.”
