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Xavier 89, DePaul 76 - The following sentence is not a joke: DePaul had a 50-42 lead at the half because they shot 11-19 behind the three point arc.
And then they DePaul'd the living hell out of the second half.
After shooting 63% overall in the first half, the Blue Demons shot just 30% after intermission and went 2-13 from long range. DePaul had the first two points of the second half to build their lead to 10 points, but the lead would evaporate as Trevon Bluiett would score six of Xavier's first 12 points of the second frame to take a 55-54 lead. A Jamee Crockett three pushed the lead back to the Blue Demons, but XU followed that with seven points in 66 seconds to take the lead for good.
It's not like Xavier exploded and ran away with the game in the second half. I mean, DePaul had a late stretch where they went without a field goal for over five minutes, and Xavier only pushed the lead from three points to 10. Rashaun Stimage's and-1 with 2:46 left cut it back to just seven and made it seem like we might have a game brewing, but back to back buckets from Matt Stainbrook cut the life out of that chance quickly.
Myles Davis, the coolest guy in the game, had a game high 25 points to lead Xavier, and he added eight rebounds and two steals to the effort. Stainbrook finished with a snazzy 17-7-6-1-1 with no turnovers as well. Tommy Hamilton had 15 points off the bench to lead DePaul, and Myke Henry assembled a 13 point, eight rebound afternoon. Head over to Banners On The Parkway for the finer details of the Musketeer victory.