DePaul men’s basketball was unable to complete the season sweep against Marquete, as DePaul fell to the Golden Eagles Saturday afternoon, 73-60, in the 118th installment between the two teams.

The Blue Demons were without their hero from the Jan. 20th 57-56 win against Marquette, starting junior guard Billy Garrett Jr. The six-foot-six guard sat out with a lower leg injury that he aggravated earlier in the week in a loss against St. Johns.

DePaul was also without junior forward Peter Ryckbosch, who was sidelined due to a knee injury suffered during the same St. Johns game.

“(The injuries) happened earlier in the the week against St. Johns,” head coach Dave Leitao said. “With Billy we were going to rest and see how it goes. Yesterday, it didn’t look very good so I was preparing for them (Ryckbosch and Garrett Jr.) not to play.”

Without Garret’s presence on the floor, the Blue Demons turned the ball over 12 times in the first half alone, which led to 14 points off of turnovers in the half for the visiting Golden Eagles.

Junior center Tommy Hamilton IV led the Blue Demons with 20 points and six boards, while senior forward Myke Henry finished with just 8 points and three boards. The senior got into foul trouble early in the first half which forced Leitao to only play his top scoring option for 20 minutes, nine less than Henry’s usual outing.

The Golden Eagles were led by guard Haanif Cheatham who had 20 points. A major portion of the freshman guard’s points came from the three-point line where Cheatham was four-for-six.

Marquette forced themselves into the paint at will, as both freshman forward Henry Ellenson (14 points, 9 rebounds) and junior center Luke Fischer (16 points and 3 rebounds) appeared to have their way with the Blue Demon’s frontcourt as the two Marquette bigs combined for 30 points. The freshman phenom in Ellenson is expected by some to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft next season.

“He’s a pretty good player,” Hamilton said, referring to Ellenson. “I think I held my own both times. I just have to get back to the lab and keep working, just try to get better for the next time.”

Marquette distributed the ball extremely well throughout the game, and always seemed to find the open man. The Golden Eagles had 16 total assists on the game. On the other end, Marquette did an excellent job of shutting down DePaul’s passing lanes. The Blue Demons had just seven assists on the afternoon.

DePaul made a late push at the end of the game to bring the score to within ten points with just over a minute left after being down by nearly 23 points with 7:49 left on the clock. However, the comeback was not to be, as Marquette finished off the Blue Demons with some late scoring at the free throw line.

The loss to Marquette is DePaul’s fourth in a row since their huge home upset win against no. 11 Providence. The Blue Demons will look to break the four-game losing trend against St. Johns, who currently sit in last place of the Big East standings.