HOUSTON (AP) -- The DePaul Blue Demons never felt safe against the Houston Cougars.

	Houston's George Williams, right, fouls DePaul's Quentin Richardson on his way to the hoop.

Paul McPherson scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half as the Blue Demons (No. 19 ESPN/USA Today, No. 21 Associated Press) held off the Cougars 77-68 Sunday night.

Quentin Richardson also scored 18 points and had 14 rebounds for DePaul (12-4, 3-1 Conference USA), which was coming off a 69-60 loss to Marquette on Wednesday night.

"We had to find out about our team after the Marquette loss," DePaul coach Pat Kennedy said. "We viewed that as a wakeup call and had several team meetings. We came into this game knowing that we had to work on several things.

"We set some goals and we achieved them tonight, aside from the 25 turnovers."

DePaul led 36-24 at halftime, but the Cougars (7-10, 1-3) rallied with a trapping defense that forced the Blue Demons into 16 second-half turnovers. They had 25 for the game.

"They (Houston) had a poor shooting first half and I'm very thankful for that," Kennedy said.

With Gee Gervin and Kenny Younger leading the comeback, Houston cut DePaul's lead to 56-50 with 8:59 to play on a basket by Younger. Gervin had 21 of his 26 points in the second half, and Younger scored 18 of his 24 points in the second half.

The Cougars got it down to 66-62 with 1:09 to play, but Rashon Burno hit five straight free throws for the Blue Demons.

"It was a tough one again," Younger said. "We got down and had to fight our way out of a hole as usual. We need to get a lead and find a way to keep it."

DePaul got off to a fast start, with Richardson scoring 10 points in the first 10 minutes to help the Blue Demons to a 17-7 lead.

"DePaul is a very good team and we came out kind of slow," Houston coach Clyde Drexler said. "Our guys have a lot of heart, but they just can't finish. They just can't get it done."