[Cracked Sidewalks] One for the Record Books:

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

One for the Record Books:

Next time you're looking for a good MU trivia question, try this on for size:
What is the 10th largest victory margin by a Marquette team?
Answer:
47 pts. 101-54 vs. Wis.-Milwaukee Feb. 9, 1962
47 pts. 74-27 vs. U.S. International Dec. 1, 1984
47 pts. 85-83 vs. Morris Brown Jan. 2, 2002
And now . . .47 pts. 89-42 vs. Coppin State, Dec 21, 2007

If MU kept records for quickest first basket, James' score about two seconds in set the tone for the game..  As expected, MU put the Eagles of Coppin State away early, running off to a 15-4 lead before the first media time out.   A few interesting lineup notes:
--Trend Blackledge started for MU and directed the opening tip.
--Pat Hazel was in for an extended stretch over the last 8 minutes, and showed a couple of nice blocks.
--For the first time in years, MU played a lineup (albeit briefly) featuring 3 bigs:  Hazel, Blackledge and Barro
--Despite the absence of the the two best outside shooters, MU had one of its best 3 point shooting games of the year,  shooting 9-20 or 45%

Dominic James paced MU wtih 18 points and 8 assists. Jerel McNeal added 18 points of his own, and Lazar Hayward was close behind with 17. Dwight Burke, after some surprising strong games early in the season, was surprising by his virtual absence tonight, losing not only the starting job but apparently some major minutes to Trend Blackledge.  For his part, Blackledge looked much improved over his play from just a few weeks back.

While one might argue that impressive stats are meaningless against marginal competition, one stat stands out as a bright spot that can't be attributed to weak competition
--MU shot 24 of 27 (88.9%) from the Free Throw line.  MU improves to 9-1 with Savannah State on 12/29 standing the way of Big East play.

The Yahoo/AP game summary is up.
Story on the game from gomarquette.com
Check out the Box Score on ESPN

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2007/12/one-for-record-books.html

[spiral97]

Also saw this on the yahoo sports recap.. DJ guarded their leading scorer so well that he never even got a FG attempt off in his 22 minutes of play.  He finished with 2 points both off of field goals.

Very very nice.. here's the yahoo recap:

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Marquette guard Dominic James always lobbies to defend the other team's best player. He made a pretty compelling case on Friday night.

With James leading the way, the No. 10-ranked Golden Eagles' backcourt didn't even let Coppin State's leading scorer get off a shot in a dominant 89-42 victory.

Marquette (9-1) held Coppin State scoreless for more than 7 minutes during a dominant 22-0 run that put the game out of reach midway through the second half, playing suffocating defense against a team that had been held under 40 points in its previous two games.

"Everything starts on defense," James said. "I told coach I want to guard their best player."

That's a plea Marquette coach Tom Crean hears frequently, and James isn't the only one making it.

"I get that text all the time," Crean said. "But he's not alone. He doesn't have that market cornered."

Crean said he has to divide up tough defensive assignments among James and fellow guards Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews just to make sure there are "no hurt feelings."

"It's contagious," Crean said. "It's contagious for this team, and it starts with those three guys."

Coppin State's Tywain McKee came in averaging 17.1 points per game, but didn't take a shot from the field in 22 minutes and finished the game with two points, both on free throws.

Matthews said the Golden Eagles are trying to get into good habits going into Big East play.

"Taking teams out of their game plan right away from the jump," Matthews said. "Having pressure defense, getting in their face. Just keep doing it against teams now so when conference season rolls around, it's nothing new."

James and Jerel McNeal scored 18 points each and Lazar Hayward added 17 for the Golden Eagles, who have won five straight since losing to Duke in the Maui Invitational.

James said the balanced scoring is a key to being an elite team.

"You look at Florida last year, they had almost their whole starting five in double figures," James said.

Crean couldn't find much of anything to nitpick about his players' performance on Friday night, so he just told them to get ready to run in practice after a short holiday break.

"You don't get many games where so many things go right," Crean said.

Just about everything went wrong in the seventh straight loss for Coppin State (3-9) -- and it probably isn't going to get any better soon.

Coppin State faced a brutal turnaround after Friday night's game, heading to Bloomington, Ind. for a noon game against the No. 13-ranked Hoosiers on Saturday.

Coppin State coach Fang Mitchell clearly wasn't looking forward to the trip -- because he apparently wasn't the guy who scheduled it.

"It was an administrative error, but it's not me," Mitchell said. "It wasn't me, OK. That's all I can say."

Crean called it a "really tough" turnaround.

"Coach Fang is such an excellent person," Crean said. "You'd find very few people in the game who don't root for him."

Brian Chesnut scored 13 points to lead Coppin State, which remained winless on the road.

Mitchell said his main scoring threat, McKee, needs to "take more charge" during games.

"He realizes that people are really focusing on him, but he has to be a lot stronger with the basketball than what he (was) today," Mitchell said.

Marquette held a comfortable 43-24 lead at halftime, then put the game out of reach with the 22-0 run that began with a pair of free throws by Wesley Matthews with 15:31 left in the half. The run was capped by a soaring alley-oop from Maurice Acker to Matthews and 3-pointer by James -- who also nailed a pair of 3s after putting up an airball from 3-point range midway through the decisive run.

Coppin State's Mike Miller finally scored at the 8:24 mark, making the score 71-35.

It was the first time Marquette held an opponent under 50 points since a 65-48 victory over Delaware State in December 2006.

"No matter which way we look at it, we threw the ball away 20 times today -- and they didn't even press," Mitchell said.

The Golden Eagles played Friday's game without two of their best shooters because of injuries. Forward Dan Fitzgerald missed his fifth straight game because of a wrist injury, and guard David Cubillan sat out with an ankle injury.

In their absence, McNeal was 3-for-4 from 3-point range and James was 3-for-6.

[chapman]

That's the second time in 3 games a team had a leading scorer averaging over 17 ppg get only 2, and if I'm not mistaken, James had the biggest chunk of the assignment on each.  Even more impressive is that he can shut down a guy and still have enough to be dominant on offense. 

I also like seeing all the blocked shots we were getting.  Many weren't even just slight tips from shots in the paint, but full out swats out of nowhere.  Blackledge has a talent for blocking shots, and it's good to have him in the mix with Burke and Barro since we really don't have one good answer at the 5.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

One for the Record Books:

Next time you're looking for a good MU trivia question, try this on for size:
What is the 10th largest victory margin by a Marquette team?
Answer:
47 pts. 101-54 vs. Wis.-Milwaukee Feb. 9, 1962
47 pts. 74-27 vs. U.S. International Dec. 1, 1984
47 pts. 85-83 vs. Morris Brown Jan. 2, 2002
And now . . .47 pts. 89-42 vs. Coppin State, Dec 21, 2007

If MU kept records for quickest first basket, James' score about two seconds in set the tone for the game..  As expected, MU put the Eagles of Coppin State away early, running off to a 15-4 lead before the first media time out.   A few interesting lineup notes:
--Trend Blackledge started for MU and directed the opening tip.
--Pat Hazel was in for an extended stretch over the last 8 minutes, and showed a couple of nice blocks.
--For the first time in years, MU played a lineup (albeit briefly) featuring 3 bigs:  Hazel, Blackledge and Barro
--Despite the absence of the the two best outside shooters, MU had one of its best 3 point shooting games of the year,  shooting 9-20 or 45%

Dominic James paced MU wtih 18 points and 8 assists. Jerel McNeal added 18 points of his own, and Lazar Hayward was close behind with 17. Dwight Burke, after some surprising strong games early in the season, was surprising by his virtual absence tonight, losing not only the starting job but apparently some major minutes to Trend Blackledge.  For his part, Blackledge looked much improved over his play from just a few weeks back.

While one might argue that impressive stats are meaningless against marginal competition, one stat stands out as a bright spot that can't be attributed to weak competition
--MU shot 24 of 27 (88.9%) from the Free Throw line.  MU improves to 9-1 with Savannah State on 12/29 standing the way of Big East play.

The Yahoo/AP game summary is up.
Story on the game from gomarquette.com
Check out the Box Score on ESPN

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2007/12/one-for-record-books.html

We also lost by 47 points to Louisville 3 or 4 years ago.