DePaul toughs it out, but it's still tough luck

Initially, the only competition was whether DePaul would outscore Marquette senior guard Jerel McNeal.

The Chicago product, who'll become the school's all-time leading scorer later this month, needed less than six minutes to record his first 11 points Tuesday night.

"He was headed for, like, a 170-point game," DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright said. "I was gonna talk to one of my guys in the Rosemont police department to get a false alarm on something and get him out of the building."

But just when it seemed McNeal and the No. 8 Golden Eagles would name their score against the Dar Tucker-less Blue Demons, they delivered one of their finest stretches of the year.

With Will Walker pouring in 19 points, DePaul turned an early 18-point deficit into a workable 5-point halftime margin.

"You would like to bottle that and say, 'This is what it takes to win,' " Wainwright said.

But Marquette never let the short-handed Blue Demons get closer and pulled away late for a 76-61 Big East victory before an announced crowd of 11,230 at the Allstate Arena.

Marquette (20-2, 9-0), which got 26 points and 5 steals from McNeal, remained the Big East's only unbeaten team.

"I thought we were really good the first eight minutes of the first half," Marquette coach Buzz Williams said. "And I thought the next 12 minutes DePaul was perfect and we were as bad as you could possibly be on both ends of the floor.

"Then I thought in the second half we were much more in character offensively and defensively."

Without Tucker, the Big East's No. 5 scorer (18.5 ppg) who stayed in black DePaul sweats after hurting his left ankle stepping on a teammate's foot during shootaround earlier in the day, Walker stepped forward for a career-high 30 points.

DePaul (8-15, 0-10) made its big run with Walker and senior Matija Poscic on the floor with freshmen Mike Bizoukas, Jeremiah Kelly and Krys Faber.

"Just guys on the team really fighting for minutes, and they came out fighting hard," Walker said. "They brought a big boost of energy from the bench, and I don't think Marquette expected them to come off and really hound them the way they did.

"We were just playing smart and taking what they were giving us - the drive (and) kicks and the steals - and we were converting on all of them where we haven't done it in a lot of games in the past."

Bizoukas handed out 8 assists vs. 1 turnover in a career-high 34 minutes, while Kelly had 5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists in a career-high 35 minutes.

"What great experience to get," Wainwright said. "I told them tonight before the game, 'Dar Tucker's not playing. Don't you dare waste this opportunity to have meaningful minutes and experience.'

"I have to tell you, in all honesty, they were really fun to coach. They were all over the place and they were excited."

But they weren't as skilled as Marquette's senior trio as McNeal (26 points) and tag-team guards Wes Matthews (20 points) and Dominic James (15 points) hit double figures in the same game for the 36th time.