Notes For MU/Villanova New Year's Jumpoff

by Zach Smart


In their final out-of-conference tune-up before the first Big East game of the season, Dominic James bailed out the Golden Eagles in heroic fashion.

The senior, hated on by cats who felt he should have never entertained NBA draft illusions, played like…well…a senior.

Let’s not forget, James has been the bulwark and mainstay of Marquette’s offense since he was a freshman. During his freshman year, James turned many heads in a competitive college basketball landscape.

The Big East was leaking with NBA talent that year, as guys like Rudy Gay (UConn), Marcus Williams (UConn), Hilton Armstrong (UConn), Kyle Lowry (Villanova), Randy Foye (Villanova), Quincy Douby (Rutgers), Solomon Jones (South Florida) and James’ then-teammate, super sniper Steve Novak, were all surefire draft picks.

James, the 5-foot-10 guard from Indiana, flexed his elder statesmen muscles and canned a game-winning three with a mere .4 ticks left against N.C. State. The Golden Eagles’ pulsating 68-65 triumph over N.C. State lifted them to 10-2 on the season, allowing them to creep back into the Top-25.

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The No. 25 Eagles sat in a zone early, one that Wolfpack freshman Brandon Costner seeped into early and often. Costner, a feast-or-famine junior forward, put on his best show of the season.

The 6-foot-9 behemoth dropped 24 points, hitting on nine of ten shot attempts and scoring 11 of the game’s first 15 points. He busted the 2-1-2 zone matchup that Marquette soon ditched, nailing treys at a 5-for-5 clip.

Marquette came roaring back from an early funk. They surged ahead, 23-20 with 7:23 to play in the first.

In the game that saw The Eagles struggled with Marquette’s length and springy athleticism (though MU was only outrebounded by a thin 25-23 margin), James, the team’s foundation who shoulders more Big East big game experience on this side of Jeff Adrien and Craig Austrie, had the final say. .

James scored 18 points and handed out six assists. The trio of Dominic James, Jerel McNeal, and Lazar Heyward combined for 54 of the Golden Eagles’ 68 total points.

With Wesley Matthews, the local product who’s established himself as a go-to-guy (his numbers are up to 19.1 ppg after averaging 11 as a junior) leaving his game in parts unknown, the three computed for nearly 80 percent of MU’s offensive output.

The Wolfpack bench won the pine time battle by outscoring their opponents, 12-5.

Still, Marquette has arguably one of the top backcourts in the nation with the three-guard set of James, McNeal, and Matthews. With college basketball still a guard’s game, their college basketball odds are always strong.

Guard play, always a dictator of destiny in Big East basketball, will be a major factor in the Golden Eagles’ New Year’s day showdown with 11-1 Villanova.

Villanova no longer has the four-guard operation that drove teams crazy in 2006, but Corey Stokes, Corey Fisher, and junior guard Scottie Reynolds (14.5 points, 4.5 assists, 18.0 ppg in the last three games) will put the Marquette backcourt to the test.

While Marquette had trouble handling the length of N.C. State, it doesn’t get much easier against the Wildcats.

Not one single iota of easier, especially now that Dante Cunningham has started to flower.

The 6-foot-8 forward is averaging 17.8 points and 7.8 boards got the better of heavy NBA prospect Damion James in an eyeball to eyeball matchup with heavy during the Jimmy V Classic.

Cunningham’s meteoric rise was kick-started with a 31-point, 11-board eruption in a win over Fordham back in November. His 23 and 12 night at Madison Square Garden upgraded him into a new zip code. A.J. Abrams lights-out shooting, however, was what really tamed the Wildcats.

With Dwayne Anderson back in the swing of things like clockwork, the ‘Cats seem to have augmented thier depth.

With Cunningham beginning to percolate (shooting a blistering 58 percent from the floor), MU will need some manpower as a stopgap measure up front.

Marquette’s Dwight Burke, who’s putting up meager numbers (2.3 points, 3.5 boards) and looked more lackadaisical than Ben Wallace on offense in last year’s Big East tournament, needs to get his game up.