Dominic in Forde Minutes

[DJO's Pump Fake]

Momentary March Sadness
But before moving on to the joy of March, The Minutes will lower a sweat sock to half mast in honor of Marquette guard Dominic James (4), who will sit out the postseason with a broken foot. He has been a solid-gold collegian for four years and Bracketville will be a little less lively locale without him.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3948048&sportCat=ncb

[MauraDay]

Forde is a Louisville local so he's especially familiar with the Big East and Louisville's rivals. Nice of him to give James a well-deserved shout out.

[drp108]

Another mention of Dominic, with a bit of a different focus, from SI's Luke Winn and his top 10 questions for March Madness.

7. Can Marquette salvage something out of the post-Dominic James portion of its season? James, the senior point guard who broke his left foot on Feb. 25 against UConn, said on Monday, "I'm living my dream through Maurice Acker." Acker is the junior backup who has taken over the reins since James has been out. He has two years' seasoning as James' relief and was a 31-minute-a-game floor general at Ball State in '05-06, and at the very least should be able to improve on James' production from the charity stripe (where he was shooting 46.1 percent) and three-point line (28.4 percent). But where Acker won't be able to make up for James' absence is on the defensive end; while James' offensive numbers dropped off as a senior, he was turning in a brilliant season as a lockdown defender against the Big East's best guards. Acker has quickness, but he's three inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than James, and won't have nearly the same impact. A team that once looked like a Final Four dark horse now has a much lower tournament ceiling.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/luke_winn/03/03/10.questions/index.html?eref=T1&bcnn=yes

[dsfire]

Acker's actually only shooting 25% from 3 this year, including a 1/16 stretch from Presbyterian through Seton Hall.  He was a 42% 3 shooter last year, so not sure if it's the longer 3, difference in quality of minutes, small sample size, or something else entirely.  Hopefully he can bring that percentage up to finish the season like he did in the UConn game.

[DJO's Pump Fake]

It has to be the minutes......he is getting his groove back now.