Marquette @ DePaul preview
Wintrust Arena
Last Meeting ( Jan 23, 2021 ) DePaul 68, Marquette 61
Inconsistency has plagued Marquette throughout the season, and coach Steve Wojciechowski remains determined to remedy it.
"We're going to prepare to win, and we're looking for guys that will compete and try to win the game, you know," Wojciechowski said. "We have opportunities ahead of us. We need to put our best foot forward and try to capitalize on them."
Marquette (11-13, 6-11 Big East) has two regular-season games remaining before the Big East tournament, starting with Tuesday's visit to struggling DePaul at Chicago in the Blue Demons' regular season finale.
Wojciechowski stressed toughness as a notable area of improvement for the Golden Eagles following Saturday's 80-62 loss at Connecticut, in the penultimate game of a six-game road trip.
Dawson Garcia (18 points) and Justin Lewis (14) paced Marquette, as Lewis returned after missing most of the past seven games with an injured ankle. The Huskies shot 51.6 percent compared to 39.3 percent for the Golden Eagles.
"They got key second shots and broken play points, where we would play pretty good first-shot defense, and it'd end up being a broken play and they got the baskets," Wojciechowski said. "They also hit some tough shots. ... The things that we can control, we didn't do as good a job on."
DePaul (4-12, 2-12 Big East) has lost two in a row and seven of eight following Saturday's 68-60 home loss to Georgetown.
Charlie Moore (22 points) and reserve Ray Salnave (11) finished in double figures for the Blue Demons, but an 18-0 Hoyas run early in the second half proved too difficult to overcome.
"We got a small enough margin that we have to live in in order to maximize ourselves, and when you don't live in that margin, you find yourself, as we did today, kind of playing from behind," DePaul coach Dave Leitao said.
Georgetown held a 40-28 rebounding advantage and had nine blocks while shooting 41.2 percent.
"The effort wasn't there today," Moore said. "We didn't have the best defensive effort in order to stop them from scoring."
The visiting Blue Demons topped the Golden Eagles 68-61 on Jan. 23 in the first meeting between the teams. DePaul snapped a season-opening, five-game conference losing streak behind 21 points from Moore, who made each of his 10 attempts from the free-throw line.
D.J. Carton paced Marquette with a career-high 23 points.
Marquette has dropped two straight meetings against DePaul, its longest skid in a series the Golden Eagles lead 25-8. Marquette is 7-3 in the teams' past 10 games.
--Field Level Media