ROSEMONT, Ill. — At last Marquette could break.

Freshman Dominic James had grabbed the defensive rebound with 6:52 left in the game Tuesday night and had favorable numbers in transition — a rare occurrence in a second half mired in the half-court.

But what was he doing?

James slowed up as he approached the left wing, even though he had torched the DePaul defense in the first half with fast breaks. To be fair, Marquette still had a 12-point lead at this point, so maybe he was just exhibiting some pragmatism.

"We just wanted to slow the pace down, use the clock to our advantage," James said after the game.

Not this time, though.

His hesitation dribble froze the Blue Demons' defense before he coasted to the basket for an easy layup

"There's no taking the foot off the gas when we're in the fast break situation," Marquette head coach Tom Crean said about the fewer breaks in the second half. "That's a tribute to (DePaul) and the way they got back in the second half."

DePaul rallied from a 19-point halftime deficit and decreased Marquette's chances to run by executing its half-court offense more efficiently in the final 20 minutes.

"We did a great job of breaking it down into four-minute segments," said DePaul head coach Jerry Wainwright. "I don't have a 19-point play."

Wainwright could have used one after his team played a first 20 minutes to forget.

"We just wanted to be aggressive throughout the entire game," James said. "We could create a lot on the break, so we were just looking to push the ball and make them have to guard Steve (Novak) in transition."

The senior forward hit 5-of-7 three pointers in the first half, when the Golden Eagles simply ran their opponents off the court. James converted an alley-oop layup on the break from freshman Jerel McNeal's pass to go up 19-6. Novak drained an open three-pointer in transition to extend the lead to 30-12.

Best of all, in the midst of an 11-0 Marquette run that gave the team its biggest lead at 46-22, Novak hit a spot-up three off James' behind-the-back pass. DePaul called a timeout. As the freshman stormed down the court and roared at the subdued DePaul student section, it was apparent that building the lead was easy.

Holding on to it was another story.

"We're still learning to play with leads," Novak said.

Marquette looked more comfortable in transition, but Crean said the team inevitably had to slow the pace down and become opportunistic in half-court sets.

"You've gotta get in the bonus at some point," Crean said. "We only shot three free throws in the first half … You don't get to the free throw line, at home or on the road, taking a lot of jump shots and playing fast. You gotta grind it out some; you gotta run your offense."