CHICAGO ‒ It was a matter of time before Xavier's offense stalled and shots refused to fall.

That's what happened on Wednesday night at Wintrust Arena against DePaul.

No. 8 Xavier had its 11-game winning streak snapped in a 73-72 upset loss to the Blue Demons. The Musketeers had one of their worst offensive performances of the season, leading Xavier (15-4) to drop its first Big East Conference game.

The Musketeers lost for the first time since Nov. 27, when it fell to then-No. 6 Gonzaga by four points.

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Xavier took a 72-71 lead with 46 seconds left after two free throws from Zach Freemantle. But the Blue Demons responded with the go-ahead bucket from Da'Sean Nelson with 28 seconds left.

Xavier got the ball to leading scorer Souley Boum in the closing seconds. The senior point guard drove from the wing and tossed up a floating layup that missed the mark. DePaul (9-10) grabbed the rebound and an ensuing jump ball gave possession to the Blue Demons with 2.4 seconds left.

Xavier forced a turnover on the inbound pass and got one last look with 1.9 seconds left, but the inbound pass to Jack Nunge got tipped and Xavier could not get a shot off at the buzzer.

"You have to give DePaul credit. I thought they played with great energy and have tremendous athleticism," Xavier head coach Sean Miller said.

Xavier shot 38% from the field, 20% from 3-point range and the Musketeers went 12-of-30 on layups.

"Souley and Colby (Jones), they combined for 4-for-23 and 0-for-8 from 3," Miller said. "They're also the same two guys that allowed us to be the No. 8 team in America, right? So you win as a team and you lose as a team."

Miller added: "This is the first time since I've coached these guys that I thought we had selfishness throughout our offense. A big function of our shooting percentage was ... we didn't run who we are, and it shows in our assists."

Miller pointed out that in the first four minutes of the game, Xavier had five assists. The Musketeers finished with 13 assists.

"We played 36 minutes with eight assists," Miller said. "Some of that was DePaul did a nice job, but shot selection, shooting too quick, not cutting and doing the different things that allowed us to attain so much of the success we've had, a lot of it tonight was self-inflicted."

The other point Miller hammered home: When you're ranked No. 8 in the country, you get every team's best shot.

"You get it all," Miller said. "I've been there so many times. It's the crowd. It's the staff. It's the team. It's a big, big deal. And they play with house money.

"The responsibility you have to have when you have that number next to your name, everything matters. And you have to be ready at the opening tip."

DePaul scored 45 points in the first half. Xavier's defense repeatedly broke down.

"We couldn't guard," Miller said. "We've been there a couple different times this year and we've rescued ourselves. The difference in this game is our offense wasn't able to rescue us."

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Freemantle finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Nunge had 16 points and 13 rebounds. Adam Kunkel had 14 points and Jerome Hunter had 10.

But the offense that's been so good all season fell flat.

Now the challenge becomes not letting one loss spiral into another loss.

"I can't do that," Miller said when asked how Xavier can make sure one loss doesn't become two. "But we'll lose again if we play offense the way we played offense in this game. There's plenty of more losses coming because the togetherness of our personnel that made us the offense that we have, that wasn't in place."

That's ultimately what Miller was most disappointed in.

"I can't believe we would abandon so many of the good things that got us to that point," he said. "You know, when you haven't lose since Gonzaga, it's been a long, long time. In a way, even if we made the last-second shot, whatever, 'Hey, we're good.' But we're actually not good. There's too many things right now that we've done really well for a long period of time that all of a sudden disappeared in tonight's game. When we're not at our best, we're very, very vulnerable."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: No. 8 Xavier Musketeers upset at DePaul in Big East Conference game