Marquette Basketball Rights The Ship Against DePaul

Things are a little more comfortable for the Marquette Golden Eagles on Saturday night after they defeated DePaul, 92-79. MU moves to 6-5 in Big East play and 15-8 overall.

Marquette’s bench did massive damage in the game, accounting for 41 of their points. This impact was immediately evident, as head coach Steve Wojciechowski lifted four of his starters for his bench guys at the 14:16 mark of the first half with MU trailing 14-7. Backed by a four pack of three-pointers, that crew (plus Haanif Cheatham) went on an 18-0 run to jump out to an 11 point lead. Two of the triples came from Andrew Rowsey, who finished the game with a game high 22 points..... on just eight shots. EIGHT.

It wouldn't be a Marquette game this season if they weren't make these things more interesting than necessary. While the lead hovered in the general area of 10 points for most of rest of the first half, Billy Garrett drained a trey for the Blue Demons with 62 seconds left to make it a five point game. Markus Howard answered, though, and it was MU up eight at the break.

Like I said, it just had to get interesting, and Brandon Cyrus pulled DePaul within four with a jam after less than five minutes ran off the clock after halftime. That meant it was Rowsey Time, as the junior transfer scored six of MU’s next eight points: three on free throws (guess how he got those) and then the new fangled way, by one of his five made threes on the afternoon.

That bucket had MU up 10, but it wasn't the nail in the coffin for DePaul. Three times in the next six minutes, the Blue Demons trimmed the lead down to six, but Marquette answered every time it got that close. A three-pointer from Jajuan Johnson pushed MU into a double digit lead for good with 4:14 to play, and it would wobble as high as 16 before settling on the final gap of 13.

Somehow, we got this far without mentioning Luke Fischer. The senior center recorded SEVEN blocks against DePaul, giving him 36 on the season, the eighth most by a senior in MU history. Fischer also scored 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting and he grabbed eight rebounds as well.

How about some highlights, courtesy of FS1?

Up Next: It’s back to the Bradley Center for Marquette, and fairly quickly. They’ll host Butler on Tuesday night, and will assuredly have revenge on their minds after frittering away a massive lead against the Bulldogs during the MLK Day Marathon. Butler will have had a whole week off by then and they’re coming off home losses to Georgetown and Creighton.