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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Keep Those Heads Up

Back-to-back losses is always disheartening. But the Hoyas performed well, overall against Pitt. I hate to say it, but I felt myself nod along as Dicky V said that he gave Pitt an A+, but still gave the Hoyas an A. We lost a close game on the road to a very good team. And it's not just me and Dick that feel that way.

This was part of the analysis that appears on CBS Sportsline:

Georgetown lost its fifth game of the season on Jan. 13, but the defeat was as encouraging as a loss could be.

The Hoyas took on the best team in the Big East on the road, played a good game, and fell just a little bit short in a 74-69 loss to Pitt.

The Hoyas haven t always shown an ability to get up for less-talented teams this season, as losses to Old Dominion and Villanova show. They hadn't stepped up against comparable teams either, looking less than sharp in defeats against Oregon and Duke.

But Georgetown brought it's A-Game to Pittsburgh, and showed why it was ranked so high in the preseason polls. The offense clicked all night in a balanced attack that saw four players finish in double figures and a fifth wind up with eight points. The defense held Aaron Gray to 11 points.

The problem was that the Panthers didn't cooperate with the gameplan. The defensive numbers were ugly for each side, but that's largely because both teams hit shots with defenders in their face as well as wide-open looks. In this case, a good offense proved better than a good defense on both ends of the court.

If John Thompson III can bottle that effort the rest of the way, his team will be among the most dangerous in the country down the stretch. The coming weeks will tell whether this was the first sign of a Georgetown resurgence, or a random game where the team finally played to its
potential before falling back into maddening inconsistency.


http://www.sportsline.com/print/collegebasketball/teams/report/GTOWN/9933576

3 comments:

Diamond_Mike said...

Well, that is certainly well put. I think that the Pitt game was our best overall performance of the year. While we did give up a lot of points, Pitt seemed to hit everything and forced our guards to overplay a bit -- providing even better looks. It helped against Notre Dame that the Irish were not hitting open shots either. On offense, we only turned the ball over 10 time and everyone played under control. My only complaint is that Jeff again became too passive. I thought Dickie V's line about Jeff was the best for the entire game: "It is like he forgets that he is the best player on the court." Jeff needs to stay agressive. Speaking of agressive, how great was Pat Ewing? Hitting that nice little runner and the two (heavily-contested) threes. He was also money on defense, basically shutting down Gray in the second half. I'm really pleased at how he is coming along. And, once again, Jessie played well. Wallace was actually less impressive than Sapp.

All in all, it was a good game. It just sucks that we lost. We have NO margin for error against the craptacular teams we play over the next few weeks. And the Nova loss is looking worse and worse.

Jester of Magellan said...

I agree about PE2. He performed like the player everyone hoped he would be when he transferred. He played athetically and aggressively, but in control. Plus, he is starting to establish himself as a legitimate shooter from the outside. Who saw that one coming?

Diamond_Mike said...

IPB and I certainly didn't see it. In the open practice, he looked like he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But so far this year he is 7 of 14 from behind the arc. That's not too shabby. We need PE2 to step up and fill the void of Egerson leaving.

On another note, is anyone concerned at how little burn Tyler got in the 2nd half? I think we play better with him in the game.