This was the Saddiq Bey game. Plain and simple. Bey dropped the hammer of God on the Hoyas with a career-high 33 points on 10-15 shooting (8-10 from deep, which ties a Villanova school record) to lead Villanova to an 80-66 victory over Georgetown at the Wells Fargo Center Saturday afternoon. The loss drops the Hoyas to 1-3 in Big East play.
After a strong first half from the Hoyas, their offense went MIA in the second. Freshman Qudus Wahab played his best game as a Hoya, finishing as the top scorer for Georgetown with 13 points on 6-7 shooting. Sophomore Mac McClung suffered a frustrating performance, only adding 8 points on 3-15 shooting from the field. Jamorko Pickett added 12 points and 6 rebounds as well.
The first half was a back and forth battle that featured a billion threes and nine lead changes. Slow starts buried the Hoyas in their first two road games of Big East play so it was crucial that Ewing’s squad come out on razor’s edge. And that they did, thanks to a flaming hot start from Jamorko Pickett who paced the Hoyas early with 8 points.
The Wildcats lit the lamp from three in the first twenty minutes. Jay Wright’s crew shot 10-17 (58.8%) from deep (30 of their 39 points came from beyond the arc). Bey in particular gave the Hoyas fits in the first half, scoring 19 points on 7-9 shooting (five were three pointers). Overall, the Wildcats obliterated the Georgetown defense in the first period, shooting 14-27 (53.8%) from the field.
The biggest issue for Georgetown was their help defense. Villanova ripped the Hoyas apart generating dribble penetration toward the basket, and then finding open shooters from deep just as the help defender would arrive. What was baffling was that some of the plays did not even require help. You could live with the Wildcats beating you ten-fifteen feet from the basket, but surrendering 10 first half threes was unacceptable.
Thankfully for Coach Ewing, his offense showed up in a big way early. The Hoyas dictated the pace of play early, pushing the ball off of ‘Nova misses and attacking the hoop. The ball movement was there too, as Mac and Terrell combined for 9 of Georgetown’s 11 first half assists.
The Hoyas capitalized on their size advantage down low early too, outscoring the Wildcats 20-8 in the paint in the first half. Yurtseven picked up two early fouls, but Qudus Wahab really picked up the slack. Wahab added 9 first half points on 4-5 shooting and grabbed three rebounds.
Things began to look dicey for the Hoyas as the Wildcats ripped off a 9-0 run to extend the lead to 31-23, but Georgetown stayed tough and battled back, responding with a 6-0 run of their own. They went into halftime down 39-36.
The Hoyas emerged from the break sleep-walking, surrendering a 5-0 run in only 30 seconds, prompting Ewing to call a time-out. Georgetown previewed what was to come for their offense, as they started off 0-3 from the field with three turnovers. The Wildcats quickly pushed their lead up to as much as 11.
But the Hoyas took advantage of Wright resting Gillespie and Bey, responding with back-to-back threes from Jahvon Blair and Allen to cut the deficit to five (49-44). That was as close as Georgetown would get.
Bey put the Hoyas through a buzzsaw today. Is Bey a good player? Absolutely, he’s incredibly valuable on the defensive end (just ask Mac and Marcus Zegarowski) and is a capable scorer. But is he 33 points good? No, it was one of those games where Bey was feeling it and took advantage. He used his size to score on Jagan Mosely and used his quickness to beat Pickett. Good for him.
What was more frustrating was the disappearing act of the offense in the second half. The Hoyas’ ball movement became stagnant as they only registered four assists in the last twenty minutes. Ewing seemed intent on attempting to get Yurtseven into a groove by getting him the ball in the post (spoiler alert: it didn’t happen). Villanova put the nail in the coffin with a 10-0 run to extend their lead 73-56 with 2:32 left in the game.
Mac appeared to hurt his right knee in the game, as he sat for an extended period early in the 2nd icing both of his knees.
This game was frustrating to say the least. But if you told me ‘Nova would shoot over 50% from three, I would’ve said Georgetown would get run off the court. Credit to Coach Wright and his game-plan. They capitalized on Georgetown’s help defense and consistently generated open looks from deep while shutting down the Hoyas’ top scoring options. Ewing has bigger problems than this loss however.
To put it simply: the Hoyas need to figure out what is wrong with Yurtseven. They got lucky that Qudus picked up the slack today, but it was a very favorable match-up down low for Georgetown. The Hoyas cannot have sustained success against Big East competition without a productive Omer. Yurtseven is clearly in his own head. It is up to Coach Ewing to help him break through this slump, because the Hoyas will sink without him.
Georgetown is back in action Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. against Creighton at Capital One Arena. The Bluejays are a top-4 team in the Big East and have a lethal big three in Marcus Zegarowski, Ty-Shon Alexander, and Mitch Ballock.
The Hoyas find themselves in a dangerous position record-wise. If the Hoyas want to avoid playing on the dreaded Wednesday night in the Big East Tournament, they have to keep themselves near .500 record-wise. To do that, Georgetown must defend home-court.
We will see if they can on Wednesday.
