Two Injuries, Two Endings

Today is Senior Day at a lot of schools around the country, and the most bittersweet one will be Syracuse at Marquette at 2 pm ET.   In a year marked mainly by a lower level of talent overall, injuries have defined the paths (and possibly seeds) of many tourney-level teams.  Among them Jerome Dyson at UConn, Steph Curry at Davidson, Blake Griffin at Oklahoma, and Dominic James at Marquette.  Marquette's three senior guards--McNeal, Matthews, and James--were tailor-made in both talent and experience for a deep tournament run.  Each of them was capable on any night of carrying the team, and while James was the star last year, McNeal has starred at an All Big East level this year.

With all three healthy for a month where ballhandling, decisionmaking, and clutch scoring (and, usually, 3 NBA prospects) are paramount, Marquette could have been poised for a memorable March.  But James broke his foot early in a game against UConn, and last week we learned his college career was finished.  It is an unfitting ending for a very good college player.  

Conversely, the story at St. Mary's is happier.  Their Australian Olympian Patty Mills was absolutely lighting it up in the first half at Gonzaga on January 29.  He's an incredible scorer with great range.  With him in, St. Mary's was poised to win that crucial WCC battle. Then he broke his hand on an awkward play, and there was speculation that he might be done for the year as well.  St. Mary's stumbled without their do-everything star, and it seemed that their tournament hopes might be shot.  However, the Gaels have picked it up of late.  Now, Mills has been cleared to play in the (already underway) WCC tournament.  With him, most people have St. Mary's solidly in the tournament as an at-large bid, even if they don't win 2 tournament games this week.   Check him out Sunday night at 11:30 ET on ESPN2.  Mills can be every bit as expolosive as Steph Curry, and he could definitely take St. Mary's on an extremely entertaining Davidson-like run in this year's NCAA tourney.