Marquette Golden Eagles (6-12, 1-6 Big East) at DePaul Blue Demons (10-7, 2-4 Big East)
Date: Friday, January 16, 2026
Time: 7:30pm Central
Location: Wintrust Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Marquette Stats Leaders
Points: Chase Ross, 15.8 ppg
Rebounds: Ben Gold, 6.4 rpg
Assists: Nigel James, 4.0 apg
DePaul Stats Leaders
Points: CJ Gunn, 13.5 ppg
Rebounds: NJ Benson, 6.9 rpg
Assists: Layden Blocker, 3.7 apg
KenPom.com Rankings
Marquette: #118, exactly where they were before beating Xavier and back at their lowest ranking since going into a home game against Butler at #120 on January 30, 2016, in Steve Wojciechowski’s second season in charge DePaul: #109 Game
Projection: DePaul has a 66% chance of victory, with a predicted score of 73-69. No, Seriously: The algorithm says Blue Demons By Two Possessions
This Season So Far: The “Oh, maybe head coach Chris Holtmann has turned a page in the book of DePaul Basketball in his first season” idea lasted… let’s say approximately 72 minutes into the season. After DePaul kicked around Chicago State in their opener, Game #2 started with the Blue Demons ripping off a 30-5 run on Stonehill, and I mean that literally, the score was 30-5 coming up on five minutes left in the first half. DePaul immediately — again, literally — handing back a 14-0 run isn’t what knocked the shine off of Holtmann’s second season in charge in Lincoln Park. No, that would be what happened in the second half when the Skyhawks outscored DePaul 22-11 in the first 10 minutes and then took a 50-49 lead with eight minutes left.
Guys, Stonehill is currently 5-12 and just 3-12 against Division 1 competition.
DePaul followed that near collapse — they won, 72-64 — by giving up an early 23-3 run at home to Buffalo, needing a 12-1 run in the second half to get within two of the Bulls with less than eight minutes left, and then losing by 13 anyway. Then they lost at home to Northwestern by just two, but the Blue Demons were up 76-73 with four minutes to go and got outscored 8-3 the rest of the way. They picked up a high major win over Georgia Tech at a Thanksgiving weekend event in Florida, but then immediately threw the value of that in the trash by losing to LSU by 33 the very next day.
Was beating Wichita State in Kansas a nice little bump to end non-conference play, especially after falling behind 16-2 immediately in that game? Sure, but DePaul got run over by St. John’s and UConn in their first two Big East games, and then threw a second half scare into Villanova at The Finn before losing 71-66 for an 0-3 start to the league.
They did get two home wins after that against Xavier and Georgetown, something that Marquette can not say since the Hoyas won at Fiserv Forum. They’re also coming off a road loss to UConn to wrap up the season series with the Huskies already, and yes, the final margin was just 1… but DePaul ended the game on an 11-1 run.
In other words: Pretty much exactly what DePaul has been for the better part of the last two decades, now with the added bonus of being ever so slightly disappointing.
I wish Marquette was ever so slightly disappointing.
Tempo Free Fun: I hope you like rock fights.
This game will showcase KenPom.com’s #165 ranked offense against the #40 ranked defense and, on the other side of the court, the #207 ranked offense against the #85 ranked defense. The first set there is when Marquette has the ball, the second is when DePaul has the ball. While the Blue Demons are the better defensive team, Marquette is also the better offensive team, and while that doesn’t exactly inspire sunshine and lollipops in the minds of the average MU fan, it is something helpful in terms of getting out of Wintrust Arena with a victory.
DePaul’s defense excels at two things: Taking the ball away from you and stopping you from connecting on two-pointers. Marquette is not as great as they have been in the past under Shaka Smart at valuing possession of the basketball, so if they’re sloppy, that will play into the Blue Demons’ hands. However, the joke is on DePaul here because Marquette is lousy at hitting two-pointers on their own. They won’t need help from DePaul’s defense to miss shots, which neutralizes that aspect of what Chris Holtmann’s team is trying to do on that end. The advantage for Marquette here is that DePaul is kind of terrible at defensive rebounding, coming in at #222 in the country. Yes, NJ Benson is one of the best defensive rebounders in the country in terms of rate per KenPom, and the Golden Eagles are going to have to figure out how to handle the 6’8”, 235 pound senior in that regard. But as a team: Bad. The Blue Demons might even be an elite level defense if they could end possessions after one shot at a better clip, but until they solve that, Marquette’s totally average offensive rebounding might have a chance to make an impact here.
Going the other direction, DePaul is going to do Marquette’s shooting defense a bit of a favor here as the Blue Demons can’t really hit the broad side of a barn as a team. Yes, there’s a couple of guys with quality three-point shooting percentages on this team, but none of them are even attempting four shots per game on average. In general, DePaul knows they aren’t very good at shooting — I’d argue maybe Kaleb Banks should be allowed to play more and thus shoot more because stop wasting a 38% shooter, but I’m not in charge here — so they don’t attempt a lot of three-pointers as part of their offense. They’re not exactly burning up the nets on two-pointers either with a shooting percentages that ranks right around the middle of the country. All of this is fine by me, as MU has shown a problem at forcing tough shots this season, so that’s great, just like DePaul’s general failures to get a second chance, too. Marquette’s bad at rebounding on the defensive end, so if DePaul’s just going to be bad at getting offensive rebounds, great, one less MU problem.
The lone thing that the Golden Eagles do close to well on the defensive end is force turnovers. They’re not outstanding at it this year, but top 70 in turnover rate is nothing to sneeze at. DePaul is down in the 220s in turnover rate on offense overall this year and second to last in the Big East in league play so far. If Marquette can lean into the defensive identity that Shaka Smart wants to see every game, specifically generating 32 deflections per contest, then they should be able to cause DePaul some real problems.
Finally, I just want to say that I am genuinely disappointed that I just had to write a preview for a Marquette men’s basketball game against DePaul and treat this like a real game that Marquette is very much in danger of losing. No, that is not a compliment to DePaul, nor is it even about DePaul at all.
Marquette Last 10 Games: 2-8, with losses in the last two and eight of the last nine.
DePaul Last 10 Games: 5-5, including finishing up their season series with UConn with two losses already.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 87-50.
Current Streak: Marquette has won six straight and eight of the last nine. DePaul’s most recent victory in the series was MU’s visit to Wintrust during Shaka Smart’s first season in charge.
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