Despite having a Coliseum-record attendance of 8,307 on Pack the House Day the Blue Demons led by Allie Quigley and Deidre Naughton had other ideas as they rained three after three to hold on to an 81-80 victory over the West Virginia Mountaineers.  DePaul made 14 3’s for the game, it felt like 20, as well as winning the rebound margin of 46-32 plus they outscored WVU 19-8 in 2nd chance points.  Naughton led the charge with 24 points on 5 of 8 from shooting three as well as a mind-numbling 15 rebounds.  DePaul also as a team were 15 for 18 from the line.  In all, DePaul played a perfect game to beat the Mountaineers who apparently will have no shot of being in the Top Ten unless they either win the Big East Tournament or find themselves in the Elite Eight, both very tall tasks.

The game started off like a three-point shooting contest.  WVU made 4 3’s in the first 3 minutes.  DePaul countered with three of their own to keep it close at 12-11 with 16:51 left in the first half.  Both teams were neck-in-neck as the refs let a look of physical play pass.  One moment there was Liz Repella rolling down the ground with Naughton.  All that was needed there was a mud pit.  Then the Blue Demons tried to breakaway with a 39-33 lead with over 4 minutes left.  They scored as many points in 15 minutes as Pitt did the entire game.  WVU countered back with a 7-0 run to take a 40-39 lead but DePaul would have the better of them as they took a 45-41 halftime lead.

In the second half it seemed like WVU improved on their defense.  That’s until China Threatt drained trey after trey to give the Blue Demons a 62-57 lead with 9:34 left in regulation.  WVU countered back with an 8-0 to give the Eers a 65-62 lead with 6:38 left.  DePaul would get the best of them thought as they made three treys in part of a 13-4 spurt to give DePaul their biggest lead of the game at 75-69 with over a minute and a half left.  What decided the game at the end was free throws.  Despite Quigley missing two front ends of the one-an-one, Caprice Smith and Naughton drained all six of their free throws while the Eers struggled throughtout the game on the foul line making just 9 of 19 foul shots.

LaQuita Owens lead the Eers with 22 points, only six in the second half.  Yinka Sanni scored 15 points on 7 of 9 shooting.  Despite that pisser of a loss West Virginia now has sole possession of third place in the Big East with an 8-2 conference record 20-4 overall.  Unless they end up on a disastrous losing streak WVU should get an at-large bid.  How they do in the stretch run will determine their seeding.  They will head to Cincinnati on Tuesday night.