Better shooting and rebounding are normally enough for a team to emerge victorious, but in Saturday’s game against DePaul, turnovers and a lack of free-throw attempts ultimately doomed another near-comeback for the Hoyas.

Shooting 50 percent from the field in the second half, Georgetown (11-8, 1-5 Big East) almost overcame a 15-point halftime deficit, but ultimately could not eke out a win over the Blue Demons (13-6, 3-3) and dropped the game 69-62 despite a 39-24 rebounding advantage.

“It’s the same old story,” Head Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “We had a game where we should’ve, could’ve won, but we went into a scoring slump.”

Junior forward Kieraah Marlow led the second-half charge, scoring 21 of her 25 points – half of the Hoyas’ offensive output – in the final 20 minutes. DePaul came out of the gate strong, making 14 of 27 field goals in the first half, including five by junior forward Caprice Smith.

Smith was virtually unstoppable in the first half, connecting on her first four shots from the floor. She missed her fifth, but deftly grabbed the rebound and laid it back in off the carom. eanwhile, the Hoyas were colder than Chicago in January, hitting only nine of 25 shots in the first half and going only 4-for-8 from the free throw line.

DePaul widened its lead toward the end of the first half, finishing with a 29-15 run and looking like the team that mauled Rutgers by 14 points earlier in the year.

“Offensively, we needed what Caprice brought to the table,” DePaul Head Coach Doug Bruno said. “[But] we still need a lot more from her given that she’s the only player we’ve got with any size at all.”

DePaul has not been comfortable with early leads as of late. The Blue Demons entered the game against Georgetown with consecutive losses against Marquette, West Virginia and Cincinnati – all games where DePaul had early double-digit leads.

The Blue Demons suffered an early blow when senior guard Rachel Carney, who had just recovered from a knee injury, crumpled to the floor with a sprained elbow and cut DePaul’s already-thin roster to seven.

Fortunately for DePaul, freshman guard China Threatt, who entered the game averaging a pedestrian seven points per game, sprung to life against Georgetown’s guards, scoring 12 points in the first half to keep the DePaul offensive pressure on.

“It’s not like we couldn’t get our shots,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Our kids have got to understand that you’re not going to get down by 15 at the half and win in the Big East.”

A poorly executed offense has weighed against Georgetown’s fortune this season, and it plagued the squad again Saturday night. Georgetown was short on guards, still without junior Brina Pollack (ankle) and now missing freshman Kenya Kirkland, who injured her left arm during practice.

The Blue Demons feasted on the Hoyas’ 23 turnovers, scoring 20 points off of the slip-ups. Despite holding DePaul without a field goal in the last four minutes of the game, Georgetown was unable to put together a decisive offensive run to seal the victory. While the Blue Demons went 6-of-6 from the free throw line in the waning minutes, the Hoyas tried unsuccessfully to claw their way back into the game.

Just as Williams-Flournoy coached for most of last year with an eight-player roster, Bruno is trying to get the hang of how to win with a shallow bench.

“We’re starting to get over the pity party now and just play,” Bruno said. “You can’t let fatigue be an excuse. That’s what we have and we’re going to play with it because we have to.”

Georgetown next plays Cincinnati, who drubbed the Hoyas 77-55 on Jan. 3 in Ohio. Tip-off tonight is set for 8 p.m. in McDonough Gymnasium.