And Now, The Waiting: DePaul 77, Marquette 69

Brittany Hrynko scored 15 of her 17 points in the second half as DePaul pulled away from Marquette and eliminated the Golden Eagles from the 2013 Big East women's basketball tournament.

Marquette trailed by just one at the half after a Katie Young three pointer with 35 seconds left, and a 6-1 run to open the second half gave MU their largest lead of the game. DePaul took the lead back on a layup by Kelsey Reynolds with just over five minutes gone in the half, and that basket ended up as the second field goal on a 14-2 run by the Blue Demons that ended up making the difference. Marquette was able to cut it to seven on a Sarina Simmons triple with a minute left, but DePaul did an excellent job avoiding MU's attempts at fouling after that and burned off enough time that after Hrynko split a pair of free throws and Simmons missed a three point attempt with 27 seconds left and DePaul up 8, MU let time expire.

In the recap of yesterday's game against Pitt, I mentioned that while Marquette had beaten DePaul in their game earlier this season, DePaul had been without Anna Martin. Turns out I come out of this one looking pretty good, as Martin went for a game high 24 points on 9-14 shooting.

Here's what I don't get about this game. Total fouls called in the first half: 11. Total fouls called in the second half: 28. TWENTY-EIGHT?!?! DePaul didn't even shoot a free throw in the first half! Now, five of the fouls were called in the last two minutes, but only three of them were on Marquette while trying to extend the game. So all of a sudden there was a reason to blow the whistle 14 more times than in the first half? Good luck trying to find someone who will tell you that this game was refereed evenly across the full 40 minutes.

Anyway.

Marquette finishes the season with a record of 16-15, and will wait to see if they have done enough to earn a WNIT bid. The WNIT bracket will be announced on Monday, March 18, after the NCAA field has been announced.