Turnovers continued to hamper Marquette women’s basketball on Wednesday night.
In 2025-26, the Golden Eagles average 15.9 giveaways per game, good enough for 149th in the NCAA. But, in their 74-73 nail-biting win over the DePaul Blue Demons, which they nearly threw away after a dominant first half, they turned the ball over a season-most 24 times.
“It wasn’t a good game for us breaking the press,” Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra said. “We made a lot of mistakes.”
The opening 20 minutes went exactly how most fans anticipated against struggling DePaul. Everything went right for the Golden Eagles. Efficient offensive shooting, dominant rebounding and forcing the Blue Demons to take difficult shots gave them a 49-27 lead at halftime.
But Marquette’s nagging problems with taking care of the ball started to catch up to them midway through the 3rd quarter. DePaul switched from a full-court press to a full court trap, swarming the Golden Eagles with double teams galore.
“That’s what they do,” Consuegra said. “I told our girls at halftime the DePaul team we just saw is not the team we’ll see in the second half.”
The press worked like a charm — at the expense of the Golden Eagle ball handlers. A Marquette lead that sat at 16 points with 5 minutes remaining in the 3rd quickly started to dwindle away because of the chaos.
The first victim was Olivia Porter. DePaul’s trapping didn’t let Marquette settle into its offense until half of the shot clock disappeared, and Porter stepped out of bounds trying to create for herself. It was just the confidence DePaul needed to ramp up the energy even more, and force Marquette turnovers on three of the next four possessions.
Those mistakes only worsened. A lead that sat at 22 at the half was dwindled down to 12 before the beginning of the final period due to seven Marquette turnovers in the third quarter.
“I don’t think we were surprised by [the press],” Consuegra said. “We just didn’t execute.”
The 4th quarter saw more of the same, as the Golden Eagles turned the ball over 10 times in the period to total 18 giveaways in the second half alone, which the Blue Demons converted into 19 points.
DePaul cut Marquette’s lead to single digits for the first time in the second half after capitalizing on a turnover. The Blue Demons doubled Jaidynn Mason — who totaled a game-most nine giveaways — and forced a bounce pass in a tight window, which DePaul’s Alayana West intercepted. The Blue Demons would go down and nail a triple, three of their 23 points from a Golden Eagle miscue.
Over the next four minutes, Marquette would turn the ball over seven different times.
It was not only intercepted passes, either.
With five minutes remaining, a frantic Halle Vice was looking for anyone to give the basketball on an inbound, but there was no option available. Five seconds came and went, and DePaul got the ball back. Less than minutes later, the high-motored Blue Demons defense kept Marquette from crossing half court in 10 seconds, and the DePaul again got the ball back.
After the final media timeout, the Golden Eagles committed five turnovers. The Blue Demons, however, could not capitalize on them all, and Marquette avoided the upset with a one-point win.
Although the final score was far closer than the teams’ first matchup in Chicago, Consuegra applauded the resiliency from her team to still come out with the hard-fought win.
“I’m proud of our kids,” Consuegra said. “We just fight… they believe they were going to win no matter what.”
This article was written by Lukas Schulze he can be reached at lukas.schulze@marquette.edu.