DePaul hosts Marquette Tuesday to close out home schedule

As is so often the case, college basketball season has flown by in the blink of an eye.

It feels like just yesterday when the DePaul Blue Demons picked up an 83-78 victory over the Northwestern Wildcats to improve to 12-1 on the year to close nonconference play, as it looked like DePaul would finally be on the right track to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in nearly 20 years.

Just as soon as DePaul’s hot start came, it was gone. As Big East play chewed up and spit out the Demons, who enter Tuesday night’s Wintrust Arena finale against the Marquette Golden Eagles at 14-15, the first time DePaul has had a losing record this season.

With the #10 seed in next week’s Big East Tournament secured for the fourth straight year, Dave Leitao is left with more questions than answers as his seat likely will begin to get a bit warm.

Marquette isn’t quite in as dire of straits as DePaul, but things certainly have soured for the Golden Eagles of late. Marquette went 3-4 in February, and just 1-4 after February 9, as they’ve seen their record fall to 18-10 on the season. Marquette is likely still NCAA Tournament bound, appearing on all 108 brackets on BracketMatrix, but they enter the final two games in a three-way tie with Butler and Xavier at 8-8 in conference play, and the team that finishes the lowest of the three will have to play Wednesday night at the Big East Tournament instead of waiting until Thursday to get underway.

As far as Tuesday’s game goes, it should be a good one regardless of the records. Marquette narrowly edged out DePaul when they played in Milwaukee, picking up a 76-72 victory behind 31 points from Markus Howard. The Blue Demons will likely be eager to get things going on offense again after scoring just 42 points against Butler last weekend, the lowest output for a DePaul team since a 48-40 loss to Georgetown to cap off an 0-18 Big East season in 2008-09.

How to watch or stream

Time: 7 p.m. CT

TV: FS1

Stream: FOX Sports GO