Today’s performance against UConn was disappointing for a Georgetown team coming in hot off of wins against DePaul and Xavier. The Hoyas entered as 10-point underdogs, and they certainly played like it. The Huskies dominated from wire to wire, handing Georgetown an ugly 98-82 loss to close out the regular season.
With Jahvon Blair coming off the bench again, the Hoyas went in with a starting lineup of Dante Harris, Don Carey, Chudier Bile, Jamorko Pickett, and Qudus Wahab. Wahab won the opening tip, but that was really all that went well for Georgetown in the first half. Wahab had the ball stripped from him on an early Hoyas possession, and then UConn went up 9-0 quickly before Patrick Ewing elected to use his first timeout. UConn continued their run and went up 12-0 before a Wahab bucket stopped the bleeding. James Bouknight started off the game with a quick eight points for UConn on 3/3 shooting. Bouknight would continue to kill the Hoyas the rest of the game, finishing with 21 points to lead the Huskies’ scoring attack.
At the 13:30 mark, Ewing finally substituted Jahvon Blair into the game for Don Carey. Despite bringing in their sharpshooter, the Hoyas really struggled to get any looks from beyond the arc in the first half. UConn, on the other hand, made a ton of open looks from three, draining seven triples in the first half alone.
In addition to not generating open looks, the Hoyas also were not getting any stops on the defensive end. It felt as if every time the Huskies had the ball down on their side in the first half, they scored. UConn also generated multiple second chance opportunities on the boards. Before halftime, Georgetown lost the offensive rebounding battle 8-0. The Hoyas have not had issues rebounding the ball all season, but UConn is a tough matchup for them. “We are not going to win if we don’t rebound and don’t defend,” commented Ewing after the loss. “We got a royal ass-beating.”
With the lack of open threes and offensive rebounds, the Hoyas did not really have many opportunities to score. They also had issues holding onto the ball in the first half. Even when the Hoyas did force a turnover or get a rebound, they coughed the ball right back up on their end. This was never clearer than when Dante Harris double-dribbled right after a Georgetown timeout, immediately handing the ball back to the Huskies. The first half ended with Georgetown having put up a mere 24 points compared to UConn’s 51.
In the second half, Georgetown performed better, but a 27-point halftime deficit is near-impossible to overcome. The Hoyas showed signs of fight coming out of the break and forced Dan Hurley to burn a timeout a few minutes into the second half. At one point, Georgetown went on an 8-0 run thanks to a deep three from Jahvon Blair and a charge drawn from Chudier Bile, cutting the deficit to 18 with 11:26 to play.
Georgetown did shoot it better in the second half and got their three point percentage for the game up to 44.4%. Jahvon Blair led all scorers with 22 points and hit several triples, a positive sign that he is coming out of his slump. Yet the damage had already been done. For the rest of the second half, UConn had enough of a cushion that this game never really felt close.
Chudier Bile fouled out of the game with five minutes left, and Patrick Ewing elected to play some of the freshmen in the closing minutes. Collin Holloway looked very good in his few minutes of action and scored five points. It was also a pleasant surprise to see Kobe Clark out there. Clark had not played since the Creighton game on Feb. 9, but he gave solid minutes for the Hoyas at the end.
Hopefully, the Hoyas got this bad loss out of the way before heading into the Big East Tournament. It is pretty clear that UConn is their toughest matchup in the conference, so ideally the Hoyas can avoid their side of the bracket and make a run. Georgetown returns to action on Wednesday night in the tournament’s first round, but their opponent depends on the outcomes of the other Big East games tonight.
