Watching Dominic James sit on the end of the Marquette bench, his left foot in a walking cast, brought to mind a scene nine years earlier: Kenyon Martin sitting behind the Cincinnati bench with crutches nearby.
James broke a bone in his left foot in the first half of the eighth-ranked Golden Eagles’ 93-82 loss to No. 2 Connecticut on Wednesday night. Marquette coach Buzz Williams said after the game that the senior guard’s college career is over.
His teammates will have three regular-season games and at least one more in the Big East tournament to show how good a team they can still be before the NCAA field is selected.
The Bearcats didn’t have that opportunity in March 2000 when Martin, who was selected player of the year by The Associated Press, broke his leg in a 68-58 loss to Saint Louis in the opening round of the Conference USA tournament.
ins short of the national championship they thought they could win.
Marquette’s trio of outstanding senior guards is down to Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews because of James’ injury.
Holding on to a high seed will be tough, but at least the Golden Eagles will have some games to do it themselves.
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TWENTY-TWENTY-PLUS: Syracuse hit the 20-win mark on Tuesday with an 87-58 victory over St. John’s.
That gave Jim Boeheim his 31st 20-win season, breaking a tie with Dean Smith for the most in Division I history.
Boeheim’s mark is more than impressive on its own, but there is a way to make it look even better.
Of the six coaches with 25 or more 20-win seasons, Boeheim’s 31 20-plus seasons in 33 years (94 percent) blows away the others. (The two non-20 seasons were 16-13 in 1981-82 and 19-13 in 1996-97).
Smith, who was at North Carolina for 36 seasons, came in at 83 percent. The others in top five are: Bob Knight (29-of-42, 69 percent); Lute Olson (29-of-34, 85 percent); Eddie Sutton (25-of-37, 68 percent); and Jerry Tarkanian (25-of-31, 81 percent).
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WEIRD STAT: Duquesne senior guard Aaron Jackson converted all 15 of his conventional three-point play opportunities this season and owned a streak of 23 straight dating to last season.
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GOING GREEN: Dartmouth had its first weekend sweep of Penn and Princeton on the road since the Ivy League was formed.
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CHAMPIONSHIP WEEK: Championship Week – a rite of March – will include 152 men’s and women’s college basketball conference tournament games from March 5-15 across ESPN’s family of networks.
A big change this year is that the Big 12 championship game will be played on Saturday, March 14, a day earlier than in previous years.
ESPN’s 24th Championship Week begins with the men’s Big South semifinals on Thursday and it concludes Sunday, March 15, with five conference championship games. There will be 14 games telecast on Saturday, March 14.
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NOT SO FAST: When Terron Victoria scored with 1.2 seconds left to give Division III Skidmore College a 57-55 lead last Friday night, some of his teammates leaped off the bench and onto the court in celebration.
After all, the Thoroughbreds had just knocked rival Hamilton out of first place in the Liberty League. And for a last-place team on its final weekend of the season, that was reason to rejoice.
Oh, if they had only waited for those 1.2 seconds to tick away first.
Because Skidmore had more than five players on the court before the final buzzer sounded, officials called the Thoroughbreds for a technical foul. Ephraim McDowell made both free throws to force overtime, and Hamilton – which had rallied from a 16-point halftime deficit – went on to win 64-62.
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ts keep coming.
In a 67-66 overtime loss at San Francisco on Feb. 21, Foster broke Kurt Rambis’ 32-year-old freshman scoring record at the school. Rambis scored 414 points during his first season for the Broncos in 1976-77 and Foster’s performance against USF gave him 418.
Foster also surpassed Rambis’ freshman mark of 317 field goals attempted.
In December, Rambis, the school’s all-time leading scorer, joined Steve Nash among those to have their numbers raised at Santa Clara’s Leavey Center.
Rambis scored 1,736 points from 1976-80 and was named West Coast Conference player of the year in 1980 and the WCC freshman of the year in 1977. He went on to play 14 seasons in the NBA, winning four titles with the Los Angeles Lakers.
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UNEVEN DIVISIONS: The Mid-American Conference has an odd set of standings as the regular season comes to a close.
Entering the weekend, all six teams in East Division (Buffalo, Akron, Bowling Green, Miami of Ohio, Kent State and Ohio) had winning percentages over .519.
The teams in the West Division (Ball State, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Northern Illinois, Eastern Michigan and Toledo) have one with a .500 record – Ball State – and five coming in from .333 to .179.
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