Nov. 4, 2006

Box Score

CHICAGO - Brandon Dagans scored a game-high 22 points, and Lewis gave DePaul all it wanted and then some Saturday night in a 77-70 exhibition-game loss to the Blue Demons at DePaul's McGrath Arena.

Dagans added four rebounds, five assists and three steals to his scoring effort. He was joined in double figures by Jason Genova (14 points), Brandon Alexander (14) and Stephan Bolt (10). Bolt added a team-high 10 rebounds.

Matthew Marino and Kendall Patterson tallied game highs of seven assists and four steals, respectively, and Dustin Warfield collected eight rebounds.

The Flyers led on several occasions during the first 15 minutes of the game, a stretch that produced seven ties and 12 lead changes.

DePaul used a 17-9 run to claim a 41-34 halftime advantage, then scored the first four points of the second half to build its biggest cushion, 45-34, with 18:25 to play.

Following a timeout, the Flyers steadied the ship and began to chip away. A 12-2 spurt, punctuated by an Alexander basket, sliced the Blue Demon lead to 47-46 at the 11:35 mark.

Lewis trailed by just a point on two other occasions in the next couple of minutes, and later whittled a 57-50 deficit to 58-56 with 4:42 remaining.

Dagans sank two free throws with :46 left to make it 67-63 DePaul, but the Blue Demons went 10-of-10 at the foul line the rest of the way to avoid the upset. DePaul was 27-of-32 (.844) to Lewis' 13-of-24 (.542) at the stripe.

"I thought we played well, and I'm proud of our effort," head coach Scott Trost said. "This game helped us, and I think we can take some very positive things from it.

"We had a much better idea offensively than we had at Illinois (83-58 loss Wednesday). We executed, got some good looks and hit some shots. Plus, we had only 11 turnovers and had an assist on 19 of our 25 field goals, and those things are really important to us."

Karron Clarke led the DePaul scoring effort with 18 points. Sammy Mejia scored 16 points and added seven rebounds and six assists, while Wesley Green had 11 points and nine rebounds and Draelon Burns netted 11 points. Wilson Chandler led all players with 13 rebounds.

"DePaul is a tough team, and (head coach) Jerry Wainwright is one of the best in the business," Trost said. "They're big, and they hurt us with some second-chance put-backs underneath.

"But we competed hard, and I think our players are starting to see that our system works if it's executed properly. We should be able to build some confidence from this."

The Flyers wrap up their exhibition slate Tuesday night at Illinois-Chicago. Tip time is 8 p.m.