Two days before the Marquette men's basketball team takes on heated rival Notre Dame, the team found itself at home against Big East bottom-dweller DePaul.
While the game wasn't the blowout some expected — the Golden Eagles (17-2, 6-0 Big East) won 79-70 — it still drew an impressive crowd and provided fans with plenty of excitement.
DePaul (8-12, 0-7 Big East) struck first, running out to a 5-0 lead, largely on the play of sophomore center Mac Koshwal. The Blue Demons were willing and able to get the ball inside to the 6-foot-10, 255-pounder in the early going.
But despite Koshwal's size advantage, the Golden Eagles were able to stay out of foul trouble, not recording their first team foul until midway through the half. Much of that is related to forward Dwight Burke's strong play.
"We had a week off since last game, so I just retried to focus myself," Burke said. "The last game I got benched in the second half. So I just tried to focus in and learned how (Koshwal) played."
With Koshwal crowding the paint, Marquette looked to its 3-point shooting to take over the game. The team made its first three 3-point attempts, taking its first lead by the 15:38 mark.
Marquette eventually cooled off from behind the arc, but still shot 55.9 percent from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range in the first half. DePaul, however, had similar success shooting, hitting 54.5 percent from deep in the first period.
What made the difference for the Golden Eagles and allowed them to amass a 48-34 halftime lead was aggressive rebounding and the low number of turnovers committed.
By the intermission Dominic James had nine assists and zero turnovers. Marquette as a team had only four turnovers, compared to DePaul's 11, and the Golden Eagles turned those Blue Demon miscues into 11 points.
The strong rebounding — Marquette held a 19-14 rebounding advantage at the half — translated to 13 second-chance points in the half.
"Those guys were a lot bigger, so I had to use my quickness, and I have to do my work early, and a lot of it is anticipation," forward Lazar Hayward said. "I think I did a pretty good job of that today."
As has been the case for Marquette, the second half was a completely different story. But instead of coming out more focused and determined as the team usually does, the Golden Eagles looked sloppy and uncommitted.
"The reason it was better in the first half is that we got more consecutive stops," Williams said. "So we were playing downhill, so we look really good when we're fast. In the second (half) we didn't get near as many consecutive stops.
"Our defense will feed our offense," Williams added.
DePaul held Marquette to 32 percent shooting in the second half. James failed to record an assist following the intermission and the team went 0-for-4 from behind the 3-point line.
But just when DePaul started to get back into the game, Marquette's experience began to show and the Golden Eagles were able to keep the Blue Demons from pulling back within eight points.
Guards Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews, 21 and 20 points, respectively, helped the cause by making their free throws down the stretch, as did Hayward with his ability to crash the boards (17 rebounds).
"The past years, sometimes we decided to separate, not come together and make sure we get stops when we need to," Burke said. "What happened today was just like, we know what we've got to do, we know we've got to get stops, we know how to get stops."