CHICAGO, Ill. – A three-point play by DePaul's Eli Cain with 40 seconds left pushed DePaul past the Drake men's basketball team, 77-75, on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at Phillips-McGrath Arena.
Drake (1-6) led for all but the final 40 seconds of the second half as an earlier 9-0 run by DePaul (4-1) helped erase a 15-point Drake lead.
Reed Timmer (New Berlin, Wis.) led Drake with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting while Billy Wampler (Eau Claire, Wis.) added a career-high 17 points, all in the first half. T.J. Thomas (Stone Mountain, Ga.) nearly recorded a double-double with 10 points and a career-high nine rebounds, five of them off the offensive glass.
"If you can find ways to duplicate the mindset we had tonight, the winning will come," said Drake head coach Ray Giacoletti. "We had some great looks down the stretch, the same looks we had in the first half. We just needed one more to go down. We had a good balance of inside and out tonight."
Cain's go-ahead points for the Blue Demons gave him 19 in the win as DePaul shot 63.3 percent in the second half and 4-of-5 from the three-point arc. DePaul also capitalized on Drake's eight second-half turnovers, scoring 16 points off turnovers in the second half alone and 24 in the game.
Back-to-back-to-back three-pointers from Timmer helped start a 20-9 run to open the second half that extended Drake's lead to 15 points, 64-49, with 11:43 left. However, DePaul answered with nine-straight points, four from Cain, to trim the lead to six points with 7:30 left.
DePaul continued to cut into the lead until a layup and free throw from Timmer stretched Drake's lead to 70-64 with 4:20 left before the Blue Demons answered again with five straight points to pull within one.
"We had a stretch where we missed shots and couldn't get them slowed down in transition and that was huge," Giacoletti said.
Graham Woodward (Edina, Minn.) tried to stave off the charge with a three-pointer, his only one of the game, but another five-straight points from DePaul gave them the lead for good.
Drake held a 38-29 halftime lead thanks to Wampler's 17 points and a flurry of offensive action. The Bulldogs assembled a 16-0 run with Wampler scoring 12 of them to build that lead. The Bulldogs' effective zone also held DePaul without a field goal for the final 4:29 seconds of the half.
The Bulldogs continue their non-conference slate on Saturday, Dec. 3, when they host Fresno State as part of the MWC/MVC Challenge. Tipoff at the Knapp Center is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Mediacom MC22 and The Valley on ESPN3.
