Dominic James played fast and furious Tuesday night, but DePaul could not cover Marquette’s freshman point guard any better than the Bears shadowed the Carolina Panthers’ Steve Smith on Sunday.
No surprise, the result was the same for the Blue Demons in basketball as it was for the Bears in football. DePaul played alternately humiliating and heroic halves in its Big East matchup with Marquette at Allstate Arena, and despite a comeback from 24 points down in the first half never got a shot to tie or win in an 82-79 defeat.
“We just wanted to be aggressive throughout the game,” James said of how Marquette established the tone.
The Blue Demons looked hopeless in a first half when the Golden Eagles nailed 10 of 12 three-point shots but seemed to mature during halftime. Led by junior guard Sammy Mejia (24 points) and sophomore guard Draelon Burns (22 points), who started for suspended freshman forward Wilson Chandler, DePaul turned the finish into one of the most dramatic in the 102-game rivalry.
Chandler, DePaul’s third-leading scorer and top rebounder, was said to have violated a team rule. He previously had been benched at the start of two games by coach Jerry Wainwright before he got in. Tuesday night he was not even on the Blue Demons’ bench.
DePaul cut the lead to 78-76 to make Marquette nervous with 21.2 seconds to go.
“I was still confident we were going to get the win, but it was definitely slipping away,” James said.
Steve Novak, the Marquette forward who hit two important free throws with 14.6 seconds left for a four-point lead, said the Golden Eagles still are learning how to protect a lead.
“DePaul did a great job of attacking us,” he said. “I said a little prayer at the end.”
But the first game between the teams as members of the Big East Conference went the Golden Eagles’ way because of James’ career-high 29 points on a mix of long-range jumpers and speedy drives to the hoop, and Novak’s crushing 6 of 10 three-point accuracy and his 24 points.
DePaul (8-8, 1-4) appeared doomed in the first half when Marquette (13-5, 3-2) came out shooting more than 65 percent from the field. But the Blue Demons, who have lost three games in a row, showed immediate life after falling behind 49-30 at the intermission, scoring the first six points of the second half.
The crowd of 12,322, DePaul’s second largest of the season, roared constantly as the Blue Demons steadily eroded Marquette’s seemingly comfortable margin.
The Blue Demons, so sluggish early, played gamely throughout the final 20 minutes, shooting 50 percent from the floor in the second half, outrebounding Marquette 34-31 and committing only three turnovers in the half.
Nothing, however, could make up for Marquette’s deadly three-point shooting. The Golden Eagles made 13 of 19 attempts and DePaul was 8 of 23.
“There was no way they weren’t going to do their very best to come back,” Marquette coach Tom Crean said. “They did.”
It just wasn’t enough.
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lfreedman@tribune.com
