Marquette's matchup with DePaul on Monday night seemed to have all the elements of a classic trap game.
A home game to cap a busy stretch of four games in nine days. A looming nine-day break. School starting the next day after winter recess. An opponent easy to overlook after it had dropped four of its first five conference games.
But the Golden Eagles quickly showed they were ready to play, especially on the defensive end, and took care of business with a 70-52 victory at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
"It was one of our better defensive games of the season, especially coming off a defensive performance (against Butler) that was not good. This one was good," MU coach Steve Wojciechowski said. "It was a total team effort. I thought everybody played outstanding defense."
The Golden Eagles (13-6, 4-3 Big East) held the Blue Demons (8-10, 1-5) to 20-of-67 shooting (29.9 %) and also forced 19 turnovers, including 11 steals.
BOX SCORE: Marquette 70, DePaul 52
That defensive grit helped MU survive tough shooting nights from the conference's top two leading scorers.
Markus Howard, who Wojciechowski said was battling an illness that made him questionable for the game, had seven points on 2-of-7 shooting. It was the first time the sophomore guard scored in single digits this season, with his previous lows of 10 points coming against LSU and American.
The illness did not affect his free-throw shooting. He sank both of his attempts and is 57 of 57 this season. Dating to last season, Howard has made 66 straight free throws and is two away from tying Steve Novak's program record set over two seasons (2004-'06).
Senior guard Andrew Rowsey shot just 2 of 12 and finished with 11 points. But he contributed nine assists and five steals.
Rowsey did go over the 2,000-point mark in his collegiate career. He notched 1,244 points over his first two seasons at UNC-Asheville before transferring to MU.
Sophomore wing Sam Hauser picked up the offensive slack and finished with 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting.
Sophomore center Harry Froling had his best effort after struggling in the eight games he has played for MU since transferring from Southern Methodist.
Froling had shot 9 of 29 in that span, including 1 of 12 on three-pointers.
Against DePaul, he was very active on the glass and finished with nine rebounds. He also scored six points on 3-of-4 shooting in the paint.
"Obviously coming in mid-season as a transfer, that's a difficult thing to do for anyone," Froling said. "Really, I'm just trying to do the little things: rebounding and trying to really improve my defense. That's always something I've needed to work on."
Marquette beat writer Ben Steele and Journal Sentinel Deputy Sports Editor Jeff Maillet discuss the Golden Eagles prior to the game against DePaul on Monday night.
Froling said his teammates keep encouraging him to shoot despite his recent slump.
"I'm not shooting the way I know I can shoot it and have in the past. I know it's going to come. I work on my shot every day. I've been doing extra work," Froling said.
Freshman big man Theo John also had a productive game by scoring 11 points. His previous season high was nine points against American on Dec. 21.
MU got 25 points and 23 rebounds from bench players.
And then there was the effort on defense.
DePaul only had two players reach double figures in scoring. Junior guard Max Strus, who came into the game averaging 18.2 points per game, was held to 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting.
"I thought Sacar (Anim) and Jamal (Cain) in particular, with their defense on Strus, was really good because that kid has been one of the best players in our league early in the season," Wojciechowski said.
The MU coach was much more pleased with his team than he was after the 94-83 loss to Butler.
"The first thing about defense is commitment and care. And I thought our guys showed great commitment and care about wanting to get stops and executing the game plan," Wojciechowski said.