Not even a handful of sticky nacho sauce could stop David Booth Saturday night.
Late in De Paul`s 82-67 victory over Baylor, Booth reached into the front row of customers for a loose ball and came out with a handful of the gooey stuff from a fan`s snack.
Booth grinned, wiped off his hand, ran his scoring total for the night to 30 points and started thinking about Christmas at home in Peoria.
”That never happened to me before,” said Booth. ”I had Coke spilled on me. I think the guy was really mad. He had just bought the nachos.”
Booth and 6-foot-10-inch fellow senior Stephen Howard provided the Demons with a nifty 1-2 punch as they improved to 5-3. When Booth wasn`t scoring, Howard was.
Howard, playing before family and friends in this flood-plagued section of Texas, scored 10 of De Paul`s first 12 points and totaled 15 of his 18 in the first half.
Booth didn`t score for almost 15 minutes. When he finally connected, it was on the first of a 4-for-4 display of Larry Bird-type set shots from beyond the three-point stripe.
”I missed a couple of easy shots early,” said Booth. ”Then I felt,
`Oh, oh, here we go again.` But I wasn`t looking to shoot at the start. I wanted to get it inside to Steve and to Jeff Stern.”
That was coach Joey Meyer`s game plan. And it worked while Baylor (6-3)
and De Paul (5-3) struggled evenly through the first half.
”We executed our offense better,” Meyer said. ”We made a real effort to go inside. Steve Howard (6 of 7) hit almost everything in the first half. Stern (1 for 8) had good shots, too, but they just wouldn`t go down.”
Howard said Baylor ”mostly played behind me in the black. If anybody plays me that way one on one, I feel I can beat him.”
Booth said he felt a surge of confidence when he connected on his first three-point try in Bird-like fashion, without rising from the floor. He scored 10 points in the last five minutes of the half and all 30 in the last 25 minutes of the game.
”I`ve always had that set shot,” said Booth. ”And I`ll shoot it if I`m open or if I`m in transition. Tonight I was.”
De Paul had several chances to KO the Bears in the first half but settled for a 38-35 lead. With the Demons stalling for the last shot, Baylor`s David Wesley stole the ball and beat the halftime horn for a layup.
Wesley finished with 26 points. Fellow guard Dennis Lindsey scored 18. Between them, they hit seven three-point shots.
”We had no killer instinct,” said Meyer. ”I told them in a timeout that we were playing like we were 10 points down, not 10 ahead.”
Howard was cracked under the eye early in the second half with De Paul leading 43-37. When Howard went to the bench briefly, Booth responded almost immediately with one of his set-shot threes.
For a team that has not been able to shoot straight, the Demons were 29 of 51 for 56.9 percent. Three men built the average: Howard was 7 for 10, Booth 10 for 15 and 12-point scorer Terry Davis 5 for 7.
Meyer went to his big lineup partly because both Howard and the 6-11 Stern from Waxahachie had friends and family in the sparse crowd of 3,682 in 10,000-seat Ferrell Center. The other reason was that Meyer wanted to establish an inside offense.
Assistant coach Robert Collins, who works with the post players, had a last-minute word with them before the game.
”He reminded us to `sit down` in the black and to dominate their big men,” said Howard. ”That`s important in post play, and we haven`t been doing enough of it.”
Baylor edged De Paul 34-33 in rebounds. Howard led the Demons with 11. Alex Holcombe, Baylor`s 6-9, 235-pound center, had a game-high 12.
