It was neck-and-neck for the better part of three quarters, but Marquette women’s basketball (17-8, 9-5 Big East) found that extra gear to separate themselves from the visiting DePaul Blue Demons (12-16, 7-8 Big East), en route to an 82-72 win on Alumni Day for the Golden Eagles.
With the win, Marquette picked up its 11th home win this season, and completed the season sweep of the Blue Demons.
Skylar Forbes’ career-high drives Marquette to victory
It was a back-and-forth first half, but sophomore forward Skylar Forbes’ fast scoring start helped Marquette weather some early DePaul scoring runs.
Forbes tallied the first basket of the game and had nine points at the end of the first quarter. By the halftime buzzer, with Marquette ahead 39-36, Forbes had contributed 19 of Marquette’s 39 points, keeping the Golden Eagles in it.
While Forbes only added seven more for the remainder of the game, she still finished with a career-high 26 points, three 3-point baskets, 9-of-9 free throw shooting, while also racking up nine rebounds and three assists. Forbes led the Golden Eagles in 3-point makes and tied for the most attempts.
Forbes said that her confidence from beyond the arc contributed to her taking some more looks from downtown.
“With the first (3-pointer) going in, it builds confidence in itself, I’m doing a little bit of a ‘heat check’ to see if the rest of them will, so if it was an open shot, if it was a good shot, I was going to take it,” Forbes said.
Jaidynn Mason and Charia Smith make impacts down the stretch
Sophomore guard Jaidynn Mason sunk the last shot of the third quarter to cut the Blue Demons’ lead from four to one, from a downtown shot at the top of the key as the shot clock ticked down in the final minute of the quarter. The shot not only got MU one step closer to tying the game up but also reenergized the crowd.
Mason followed that up by dishing a crucial assist to redshirt sophomore forward Charia Smith on the game-tying layup at the 7:24 mark in the fourth quarter.
From the next two DePaul possessions, Mason came away with a steal and a defensive rebound, converting those into two layups on the other end of the floor, prompting a DePaul timeout after her second layup with 6:44 left in the game. After Mason gave Marquette that four-point advantage, the Golden Eagles never trailed for the rest of the contest. She finished with 13 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Smith, who missed the 2023-24 season with a torn ACL, gave the Golden Eagles an interior spark, as the Blue Demons looked to neutralize Forbes after her dominant first 20 minutes. She provided four second-half baskets off the bench, including the game-tying shot. She finished with a career high nine points, two rebounds and a steal, while seeing a season-high in minutes.
Junior guard Olivia Porter, who finished with 18 points herself, said that she thought Smith matched up well against DePaul’s guards.
“With [DePaul] being in foul trouble, there were a lot of smaller guards on Charia, so we had to bring her out, Skylar out, so we could feed it into Charia, and that’s kind of how she had some impactful minutes for us today,” Porter said. “We knew that they were going to three-quarter her, and it was going to be kind of difficult to get it in on the initial pass. So, just working around to make sure that she gets her paint touches in there.”
Head coach Cara Consuegra attributed the team’s ability to separate from DePaul down the stretch in today’s game to how the group has bought in, despite trailing multiple times.
“They’ve been phenomenal with building relationships within the team; this is the most together and connected team I’ve ever been around,” Consuegra said. “Which is just wild to think about, because they’ve only been together a few months, so a lot of credit goes to them and I think that’s why in hard games, we can overcome.
“That’s why we can coach them really hard, because we’re connected, they trust us, they trust each other, and that stuff matters.”
Up Next
Marquette hosts Providence (11-16, 4-10 Big East) on Wednesday. The Golden Eagles prevailed 67-54 in the two teams’ first matchup in Rhode Island, on Jan. 22. Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at michael.severson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.