December 22nd, 2024
Georgetown basketball escaped New Jersey with a win on Sunday as they outlasted Seton Hall in a 61-60 thriller. The win lifts the Hoyas to 2-0 in the Big East, their first time being 2 games above .500 in conference play in 8 years(!). If you’re surprised by that stat, then you probably aren’t very familiar with the state of Georgetown basketball in recent years. Although an extremely ugly and foul-heavy game for most of the way, the Hilltop has more hope at this point in the season than most students can remember.
Takeaways from the game:
Struggles:
Georgetown struggled in two major categories, the first being turnovers. Multiple players showed sloppiness with the basketball, with a few unforced turnovers down the stretch in the second half, along with a lot of forced ones as well. Seton Hall employed a press for almost the entirety of the last ten minutes of the contest, which was a huge factor in getting them back into the game after trailing by as much as 12. Malik Mack missed this game, and Epps left momentarily with an injury, leaving the team low on backcourt depth, but the Hoyas will still need to clean up their ability to handle pressure and get into their offense quicker against better, more athletic opponents moving forward. 19 turnovers was the total for Georgetown, and that will simply be too many if they’re going to compete against teams at the top of the league.
The other area that the team struggled with was allowing too many offensive rebounds. They showed the ability to protect the rim well, especially Sorber, but struggled mightily with limiting second chance opportunities for the Pirates. Seton Hall finished with 22 offensive rebounds, which is absolutely insane, and was higher than their defensive rebound count (17), which might be even more insane. Much like the turnover count, 22 offensive rebounds will be enough for other teams to put Georgetown away, and this should be one of the main focus areas for improvement.
Positives:
Role players, such as Curtis and Caleb Williams, as John Fanta dubbed “The Williams Boys”, stepped up with big-time shotmaking that helped the Hoyas pull away late. Despite only 5 points from the bench, as Cooley shortened the rotation, lots of young players still saw meaningful minutes, which gives them a bode of confidence and should help continue to expedite their improvement.
The question that all Georgetown fans will be wondering in the following days is surrounding the health of Jayden Epps. Epps went down late in the second half with what appeared to be an ankle injury, as he came down awkwardly from a mid-range floater and limped off before returning to the game soon after. Hopefully the return to the game signals that the injury isn’t too serious, but the Hoyas will have the luxury of rest, as they don’t play again for 6 days.
The team-level defensive effort continues to impress, especially compared to previous years. Yes, the rebounding struggles were frustrating to watch in this game, but Peavy and Sorber have been defensive anchors all season, and everyone has bought in behind them. The concern going into the season was that an undersized backcourt of Epps and Mack could prove to be costly on the defensive end, but this hasn’t been the case. Epps has shown incredibly active hands which he showed again tonight, and has been averaging over 2 steals per game this season. The refs were incredibly trigger-happy with the whistle, which led to foul trouble on both sides, and ultimately fouled Peavy out late in the second half. While some of the fouls were certainly justified, many were ticky-tack calls that I wouldn’t expect to see in most Big East games going forward. Georgetown was also incredibly lucky that the Pirates were a measly 3-for-24 from three, but we’re not going to apologize for having a top 50 KenPom defense! Cooley has this team more bought-in on the defensive end than I have seen from any team in my four years here, and it’s paying dividends.
Seton Hall entered the game at 5-7, with two buzzer-beating losses to Fordham and on the road against Rutgers. Despite the losing record, the Pirates have been competitive, and any road game in the Big East will be tough. Georgetown should be happy walking out of Prudential Center with a gritty, hard-fought win.
