Despite 32 points from Cleveland Melvin, DePaul lost at home to Cincinnati Tuesday night 75-70. The Blue Demons (10-7, 1-3 Big East) started and ended strong, but the middle of the game, particularly early in the second half, doomed them.
DePaul was just a few missed free throws away from a chance at forcing overtime and potentially a chance at stealing a victory. Down 70-59 with a minute left, a furious scoring barrage, led by Melvin, mixed with full-court pressure brought the score to 73-70 with six seconds remaining. Cincinnati’s leading scorer, Sean Kilpatrick, iced the contest by making consecutive free throws.
The final push was like the beginning of the contest. The Demons scored the first nine points of the game en route to jumping out to a 13-2 lead. The energy was evident from the opening tip: Charles McKinney hustled the ball down, drove to the hole and converted a tough layup for the first points six seconds in.
The lead was short lived, as Cincinnati (15-3, 3-2 Big East) tied the score at 15 just moments later. The teams traded scores for the rest of the first half, but the Bearcats began the second period on fire. They went on a 10-0 run behind three-pointers by Kilpatrick and Cashmere Wright, and two layups by Wright.
“Inexplicably, in the second half,” head coach Oliver Purnell said, “we gave two ‘dare’ shots to their two best players at the beginning of the second half, and that really changed the complexion of the game. I thought that kind of got them going a little bit.” Cincinnati essentially led by double digits until the final minute.
The loss wasted a season-best game for Melvin. Along with the 32 points on 14-of-20 shooting, the forward also grabbed eight rebounds, sank a three-pointer and finished a few alley-oop jams.
“I was just doing what coach was telling me to do,” Melvin said, “running the floor, pressure the ball, defend and getting open and being patient on offense. My teammates were looking for me on the offensive end.”
Brandon Young scored 18 for DePaul, and McKinney scored 10. Both had four assists and three steals. The rest of the lineup struggled. Jamee Crockett, the team’s third-leading scorer at 9.4 points per game, shot 1-of-7 from the field for two points. Moses Morgan went 1-of-5 shooting, and Worrel Clahar shot 0-for-4. Durrell McDonald, a usual starter, played only six minutes due to a poor outing against Connecticut last week (two points in 14 minutes).
“I thought our guys were aggressive, and they fought,” Purnell said of the team effort, but added, “we didn’t get enough production from enough guys. We need seven or eight guys to play well in a game like this.”
Wright was the star on the Bearcats side, with 20 points and seven assists in just 22 minutes. The guard found ways to get layups, from floaters to baseline drives. When left open, he connected on two long three-pointers. Yet, with 15 minutes left in the game, Wright dropped to the floor in pain, clutching his right knee. He would miss the rest of the game, but returned to the bench minutes later.
The Demons did not see Wright’s absence as an opportunity, because Kilpatrick (18 points) and JaQuon Parker (12 points) stepped up. “We still weren’t pressuring the ball on their other guards,” Melvin said. “The other guards were just driving and we weren’t containing drives.”
Cincinnati outrebounded DePaul 35-27, shot 59 percent from the field, and blocked 12 shots. Cheikh Mbodj swatted seven shots, and David Nyarsuk sent a Donnavan Kirk shot attempt into the crowd.
DePaul missed its share of threes (2-for-14 from deep) and also shot only eight free throws, compared to Cincinnati’s 31 attempts. The Demons’ forced 19 turnovers, though, and scored 48 points in the paint.
DePaul’s next game is Saturday, when the Demons take on St. John’s at 11 a.m. at Allstate Arena.
