A late rally wasn’t enough to make up for blowing an early lead Wednesday as DePaul men’s basketball team came up short against Southern Mississippi, 75-68.

To start the game, DePaul’s offense looked fluid against a Southern Miss (2-0) team that won 27 games a year ago.  The ball movement was crisp and the shots were falling, causing the Blue Demons (1-1) to jump out to a 21-11 lead.

However, as head coach Oliver Purnell said afterwards, games are played for the full 40 minutes, not in bursts.

Southern Mississippi went on a 20-4 run to close the first half and the Blue Demons spent the rest of the game trying to edge a scrappy Golden Eagles team.

“I thought we relaxed a bit against a gritty, tough team like Southern Miss. and that’s what happens,” Purnell said. “This was the first time this year we faced that kind of adversity and we didn’t react to it very well.”

Rebounding, which was a huge problem a year ago, continued to plague the Blue Demons. Even with a clear size advantage, DePaul was outrebounded 36 to 29.

More importantly, they were outrebounded when it counted, Purnell said.

“In the first half, our (inability to block out) is what got them started,” Purnell said. “We didn’t get critical rebounds at the end and that’s what cost us.”

Part of DePaul’s success early was in part to the tandem of guards Brandon Young and Billy Garrett Jr.  Young finished the game with 23 points and Garrett Jr. added eight assists.

The Blue Demons started hot as well, making their first seven of 10 shots. Of those 10, three of them were made three pointers.  

The three-pointer, though, was a shot that would come back to haunt them as the team rushed their shots and allowed Southern Mississippi to capitalize on missed shots.  

Southern Mississippi’s Aaron Brown in particular made the Blue Demons pay, scoring 12 points with six of those points coming from beyond the arc.

“We stopped defending,” Garrett Jr. said. “We got comfortable behind the three point line and we stopped defending. They went on a run and we still kept shooting threes. We went on a drought, where we stopped scoring for about five or six minutes. That’s what really hurt us.”

DePaul would make a run in the second half, cutting the lead down to three in the final minutes. Purnell’s signature full-court press forced turnovers, including one that led to a highlight-worthy dunk from Charles McKinney.

Still, it was DePaul’s own turnovers that ended up costing them. On a crucial possession after getting a turnover, Young attempted a half-court alley-oop to Cleveland Melvin that went out of bounds.

“We just tried to get something going real fast instead of being patient so that cost us,” Young said.  “I could have been more poised.”

Despite the loss, the Blue Demons have a quick turnaround with a game against Wright State on Saturday. Purnell said that he needs issues such as rebounding and turnovers to be fixed against a similar team (in comparison to Southern Mississippi).

“It was the second game for a lot of these young guys,” Purnell said. “I thought it showed. That just means that Young and ‘Cleve’ have got to step up.”