Young Blue Demons turn to senior Burns for winner

Up until the final minutes Saturday, it was a freshman with perhaps a little chip on his shoulder who dominated play.

But in the end, with everything on the line, it was a savvy senior with an aching shoulder who came through in the clutch as DePaul survived a tenacious Northwestern attack to sneak out of the half-filled Allstate Arena with a 54-53 victory.

Blue Demons guard Draelon Burns was fresh off a 3-for-16 shooting performance against Creighton and was nursing a strained right shoulder that limited his practice time earlier in the week.

But Saturday, Burns scored his only field goal of the game -- a short lean-in from the paint with just a shade more than six seconds remaining -- to win for the Blue Demons (1-1).

"I felt pretty confident on that shot; I think my coach and my teammates expect me to get the ball in a situation like that," Burns said.

He thought right.

"There's no one I'd rather have take that last shot," DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright said. "When the going got tough, he feathered that shot in."

Burns' heroics overshadowed the sterling play of Northwestern freshman guard Michael "Juice" Thompson.

Growing up in the shadow of DePaul's campus and going up against some of his boyhood friends Saturday, Thompson played like a guy wanting to prove the Demons wrong for not pursuing him. Behind 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point land, Thompson led all scorers with 24 points.

"He's a tough kid. I think an awful lot of him, and I told him that," Wainright said. "The thing I've always liked about him is that he's not afraid. He's going to do great things for Northwestern."

But as well as Thompson played, it was Burns who left the court a hero after Karron Clarke sealed the deal by swatting away Sterling Williams' shot at the buzzer.

"Drae came up big in the clutch," said Blue Demons forward Wesley Green, who came up pretty big himself when he drew a charge on Thompson with 3:19 left, sending the freshman to the bench with 5 fouls.

"I thought that was the biggest play of the game," Wainwright said.

That the game was even a game was somewhat surprising, considering how dominant Depaul was on the boards, outrebounding the undersized Wildcats 46-26.

"They got them all, they got them all," Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said. "They were relentless on the backboards. (A margin of) 20 is too many."

Nine Blue Demons played double-figure minutes, with Will Walker leading the way with 13 points and Jabari Currie addng 10.

"I like how we played 10 of our guys in a 1-point game," Wainwright said. "This is a young team we're trying to build, and I'm not about to gut it. We couldn't have won without the contributions of our seniors, but our young players were pretty exciting."