That was ugly.
Six days after Georgetown secured a momentous road win in Omaha, Creighton got their revenge and will leave DC with the last laugh. It wasn’t all that close, either. The Bluejays never trailed and much of the second half was simply a formality as Creighton coasted to a 63-48 victory over the Hoyas.
The beginning of the game was characterized by a frenetic pace and poor defense from the Hoyas. While the Bluejays are generally known for their three-point shooting, they instead made their hay attacking the paint. Despite giving up four inches to Qudus Wahab, Creighton’s Christian Bishop had his way down low in the opening minutes. Bishop finished the night with a game-high 17 points and pulled down nine rebounds. As a team, the Bluejays outscored the Hoyas 20 to 4 in the paint before halftime (and 38 to 12 on the night).
On the other end, Georgetown was content to settle for three pointers. Of the Hoyas’ 30 field goal attempts in the first half, 20 were from beyond the arc. And it’s not like they were dropping, either. Georgetown shot an ugly 26.7% from the field and 25% from three-point range in the first half. In the postgame press conference, Patrick Ewing was visibly displeased with his team’s decision making. “Tonight, I thought we played selfish,” Ewing said. “To a man, everyone was selfish.” Despite this selfish play, the Hoyas somehow remained competitive for most of the first half, pulling within three with 7:59 to go until the half.
From the rest of the half, it was all Creighton. In fact, Georgetown went a full six and a half minutes without scoring. Turnovers once again reared their ugly head during this rough stretch, as the Hoyas turned the ball over 13 times in the first half, including five from Chudier Bile alone. It was certainly not Bile’s night, as he finished with just six points on 2 of 8 shooting. With the Hoyas reeling on both ends of the floor, the Bluejays ended the half on a 11-2 to take a comfortable 33-21 lead into the locker room.
Each team’s first two possessions after halftime told the story of the night. Creighton scored twice in the paint; Georgetown missed two three pointers. From wire-to-wire, the Bluejays thoroughly dominated inside, outscoring the Hoyas 38 to 12 in the paint. On a night when Georgetown let it fly from beyond the arc, the Hoyas converted just 9 of their 31 three-point attempts. That’s a bad combination.
Creighton quickly expanded their lead to 19 with 16:54 to play and never looked back. From that point forward, the end result was never in question, as the Hoyas never cut the deficit to less than 15 points.
I could go on, but I’ll spare all of us the ugly details. Above all, it was simply poor execution on the offensive end that killed any chance of a Georgetown comeback. “We weren’t making the plays, we weren’t taking good shots, we were forcing things, and I think offensively we just did not have it,” Ewing commented after the loss.
Tuesday night’s blowout was not a function of Creighton playing exceptionally well, but rather Georgetown playing exceptionally poorly. It’s tough to find any bright spots in the Hoyas’ performance. Instead, Ewing and company will try and leave this outing in the past and refocus for Saturday’s matchup with Butler.
