It’s the hope that kills you.
At halftime of Sunday’s home bout with the 15th-ranked Providence Friars, Georgetown led 30-27. Unfortunately for the Hoyas, college basketball games have two halves.
Providence (20-2 overall, 10-1 Big East) flipped the script after halftime, dominating Georgetown (6-15, 0-10) en route to a 71-52 victory for the Friars. Meanwhile, this is Georgetown’s 11th loss in a row; they have not won a game since December 15th against Howard.
Plain and simple, this was a complete and utter collapse on behalf of the Hoyas. Georgetown’s offense was disjointed and ineffective—the Hoyas shot just 20% from the field and 1 of 14 from beyond the arc after halftime. The defense wasn’t any better. Providence seemingly scored at will and made seven three pointers in the second half. Six of them came courtesy of Jared Bynum, who finished with a career-high 32 points on 11 for 15 shooting.
“All I talk about is we can’t exhale in the second half, and that’s what we did,” Patrick Ewing said after the loss.
Things went about as well as they could have gone for Georgetown in the first half. Providence was struggling to make shots in the early going, and the Friars turned the ball over an uncharacteristically-high 10 times. The Hoyas made their hay attacking the rim in the first half behind strong play from Collin Holloway and Aminu Mohammed.
Mohammed led Georgetown on the day with 18 points on 7 for 11 shooting, an efficient scoring performance for the standout wing. Fellow freshman Ryan Mutombo also looked the part in the first half—Mutombo was clearly the better option over Timothy Ighoefe, who has started the last eight games at the center position.
Coming out of the locker room, it was clear that Providence wanted to assert their physicality. Though standout big man Nate Watson had just 10 points, he had a much larger impact on the game than the stat line indicates. The Friars took the lead behind an and-one from Jared Bynum with 18:15 to play. Although Georgetown briefly pulled back ahead, Providence regained control shortly thereafter—this time for good.
The Friars really broke the game open midway through the second half in which they went on a 16-0 run over a four-minute stretch. During this run, Providence was able to get out in transition and score easy points—the Friars scored 15 fast-break points in the second half. Georgetown also struggled to contain Providence’s three-point shooters, a familiar issue for this Hoyas team. When the Hoyas finally put a stop to the Friars’ run, the deficit was insurmountable.
Sunday’s loss wraps up an 0-3 homestand for the Hoyas. If there was any hope left that Georgetown could turn their season around, it’s safe to say it has evaporated after several abysmal performances.
After the loss, Ewing preached the importance of staying focused. “At some point we have to get our first Big East win,” said Ewing, “and after that, we will take it from there.”
I don’t know, Patrick. After this week’s ugly results, it seems like a very real possibility that Georgetown could go winless in Big East play.
