For the first time this season, DePaul suffered back-to-back losses as they fell to the Marquette Golden Eagles 85-71 at Wintrust Arena.

The Blue Demons were hoping for a bounce back performance following their loss against Creighton. But once again, for DePaul, points were at a premium.

The Eagles quickly went up 8-2 in the opening minutes of the game. DePaul managed to claw back but it was a struggle. Coach Doug Bruno’s team shot just 24 percent from the field including just 12.5 percent from three. It was a similar story to the loss against Creighton.

The second quarter was DePaul’s best quarter when it came to shooting percentage. They shot 53.3 percent as opposed to Marquette’s 33.3 percent. It was enough that the Blue Demons were able to go into halftime tied.

The two teams traded the lead in the third quarter until Marquette started to pull away. The Golden Eagles kept building their lead into double-digits but DePaul still tried to battle back and make it close. The Blue Demons were able to cut their deficit down to six points, but that was as close as they were going to get.

As the saying goes, “the numbers don’t lie.”

After shooting 10 times from beyond the arc in the first half, DePaul only attempted four shots from three in the second.

“It wasn’t a conscious effort to only take a small amount of 3’s,” Bruno said. “We allow our players to shoot quickly so if you’re open you can shoot quickly. But when you’re not open and need to pass, we have to be able to understand that if a possession needs two passes or three passes or four passes or five passes, etc., you have to make those passes to get a good shot.

“No, it was not something we consciously said, we’re trying not to look at the 3-point line. But you have to suck the defense in – can’t get out – move the basketball. We didn’t do that much tonight,” Bruno said.

DePaul was outrebounded 50 to 27, which led to Marquette having more second chance points, 20-9. The Blue Demons did force more turnovers ,18 to 13, but the Golden Eagles scored more off their turnovers than DePaul.

This was DePaul’s fourth game in 10 days and fatigue may be setting in. They are one of the few programs who has not had a pause this season.

“I know it’s not fun to be put on pause when you’re a coach but pause is rest,” Bruno said. “And my players have been the only team in the Big East to not have to be put on pause and I think they deserve a lot of credit for their code of discipline that they are displaying to not have to put on pause.”

Bruno stressed that pause is rest and it’s something DePaul has had much of recently. He brought up Deja Church, for example, who missed the game against Xavier because of a sprained ankle and has been playing through it these past couple of games.

Still, he did not offer it up as an excuse rather as a fact, while trying to remain respectful of those teams who have been forced to pause this season. 

“DePaul got beat by a very good Marquette team and a team that out-toughed us,” Bruno said. “Marquette was just totally the tougher team from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. It was most widely demonstrated in the simple number of 50 to 27 on the glass but there’s a lot of other areas in which I thought Marquette out-toughed us.”

Lexi Held led DePaul with 23 points and shot 2-for-3 from the 3-point line. She also had four assists and three steals.

DePaul went 2-2 on this four-game homestand and will try to get back to winning ways when they go on the road and take on Providence on Saturday.