In DePaul’s first game of the weekend, the women took on the Xavier Musketeers, who came in 1-4 in the Big East and on a four-game losing streak.  The Demons (13-5; 5-1 Big East) ensured there would be no chance of an upset, taking care of business in a 79-48 throttling for their third straight win since the loss to Marquette.

“I’m really proud that these players have stepped up since the Marquette game and didn’t just hang their heads and feel sorry for themselves,” head coach Doug Bruno said.

Kelly Campbell helped DePaul build an early lead by opening the scoring with back to back three pointers.  She would later throw a gorgeous three quarters court pass over the Xavier defense for an easy Chante Stonewall layup to put the Demons up 13-2 and forced a Xavier timeout.  Xavier would bring it back in the second half of the quarter and would end it down just seven, 16-9.

The second quarter would be back and forth as well, DePaul expanding their lead by just three.  In the third quarter, DePaul put the game out of reach with a dominant third quarter.

“I think our pressure really helped us blow the game open,” said Campbell, who finished with 11 points and eight rebounds.  “Our defense lead layups and open shots.”

The defense helped DePaul to a plus-nine turnover advantage, as well as seven blocks to Xavier’s one.  DePaul would outscore the Musketeers 27-11 in the quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Bruno looked to get the freshman some extra minutes with about seven minutes left in the game and the Demons would finish it out, never trailing in the game.  The final score of 48 for the Musketeers marks DePaul’s second best defensive performance of the year, points wise.

Campbell was one of DePaul’s two double digit scorers, the other being Mart’e Greys. Greys had a game high 18 on 6-of-13 shooting and 5-of-11 from deep.  This marked Greys sixth consecutive game with double digit scoring.

“I’m just trying to focus and finish.  And my teammates are doing a great job helping me on post feeds or, if I read the screen right, getting me the ball on time and on target,” Greys said.

Xavier was lead by Kindell Fincher, who finished with ten points on 4-15 shots and just 1-7 from downtown.  Xavier dropped it’s fifth in a row and fall to under .500 on the season (8-9).

With Xavier down, DePaul set their sights on their next game, a Sunday matchup against the Butler Bulldogs.  Butler fell to Marquette 69-67 on a buzzer beating layup of an inbounds pass in their last outing, bringing them to 3-3 in the Big East.

“You can only control what’s in front of you and (the players) have done that in the three games since the Marquette game,” Bruno said.   “And now we are going to have another tough game on Sunday against a really good Butler team.”