The climb was too steep for Marquette men’s basketball.
After only scoring 14 points in the first half of their 62-51 loss to DePaul (16-13, 8-10 Big East), the Golden Eagles (10-19, 5-13) were unable to completely scale mount comeback on Sunday at Fiserv Forum.
“We lost the game in the second half of the first half,” head coach Shaka Smart said. “I thought it had been quite for us since our guys have had that deer in headlights look, but they had it there for a stretch.
“I thought we defended, for the most part, pretty well in the first half, but not good enough for if we’re scoring 14 points obviously.”
Fourteen points is the lowest amount Marquette has scored in the first half since 2000. The Golden Eagles led 13-11 with 7:39 to play after both teams came out of the gates slow on offense. But a pair of free throw makes by senior guard Brandon Maclin kickstarted a 21-1 run that would help the Blue Demons leave MU in the dust.
“Really disciplined, physical (and) active,” DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann said about the team’s defense over that stretch. “That’s the biggest thing. We had a unique group out there, and I thought it was really disciplined.”
The blue & gold shot just 22.7% (5-for-22) from the field in the first 2o minutes. It went 0-for-10 from deep and turned the ball over eight times.
Senior guard Brandon Maclin outscored the blue & gold on his own in the first half, finishing with 15 points.
All of that culminated in Marquette heading back to the locker room down 32-14.
“I think overall, what you saw from our guys in that stretch was an ‘Uh oh,’” Smart said. “I think our guys have done a great job of late, you know, fighting that off. And that’s a team thing for us.
“It’s not one individual, but we definitely need various guys to step forward and say ‘No, we’re not getting down about this. We’re going to trust what we do.’
“We got away from our spacing on the defensive end, and that played into DePaul’s hands the way they were helping. And then we lost some confidence in terms of attacking closeouts. There was times when the ball came to us and we just didn’t make a decision, we didn’t drive, we didn’t shoot, we just held it. And they were able to adjust.”
Marquette blitzed the Blue Demons out of the gates in the second half with a 12-2 run and were within eight points after trailing by as much as 17 early in the second half.
“It takes incredible energy to do that, and teams are going to respond,” Smart said. “[DePaul] called timeout, and they were able to push the lead up to 15, 16 (points).”
The Blue Demons were about to keep their distance for a while, but Marquette made its last-ditch effort to reach the apex of the mountain over the final nine minutes of the game.
The Golden Eagles went on an extended 16-2 run to get within three points with 3:39 to play in the second half.
But Marquette missed four crucial free throws down stretch, finishing 11-of-22 from the charity stripe.
“We have to get better at it,” Smart said. “We’ve got to coach it better; we’ve got to relax and step up to the foul line and shoot it. I have confidence in those guys shooting them.”
The win marked not only DePaul’s first on the road against Marquette since Jan. 23, 2021, but also the first time its swept the season series with MU since the 1990-91 season. As the blue & red dribbled out the waning seconds, a contingent of DePaul students in the Fiserv Forum upper bowl serenaded the Marquette fans leaving their own building early with mocking chants — including, but not limited to, “We are DePaul” and “Where are you going?”
Maclin led the way for the Blue Demons with 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting from the floor. N.J. Benson was DePaul’s other driving force, scoring 10 points and pulling down a season-high 16 rebounds.
“There were a few he outworked us for, he’s a good player,” Smart said.
With a week remaining in the regular season, Smart said the Golden Eagles will continue to try to grow despite the challenging day.
“We’ve been talking a lot for the last several weeks about, just growing to the point where we could be at our best heading into the Big East Tournament,” Smart said. “We have a lot of evidence of that, but today doesn’t feel like it.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
