Great win and despite a second half tightening, I am so glad we emerged victorious. Villanova proved as tough as I'd thought they'd be.
All I can say we should be very thankful the college game is only 40 minutes because had that game been the length of an NBA game, we would have lost. No question about it in my mind. That's how much of a momentum shift there was from the first to second half.
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Thought you boys might be interested to see the highlights we have over at bigeasthoops.com. The first half was pretty much the best basketball I've seen this year. Didn't catch the second half -- did Nova's press wreak havoc again?
I think a few things factored into the second half tightening:
(1) As you point out, we played out of our minds during the 1st half. It would have been incredibly difficult to sustain that level of play for the entire game.
(2) From what I could tell (and I was watching from a bar with a lot of people, so it was tough to focus at times), we made a mistake in the second half by not playing Tyler Crawford more. I thought when he was on the floor he did a fantastic job of disrupting the Villanova guards, who had a horrific first half and then heated up in the second half.
(3) Too much emphasis on burning clock with about 12 minutes left in the game. While I certainly understand the value of running time off the clock with a bug lead, I think we sometimes focused too much on this and it wound up disrupting our offensive flow and resulted in some very bad forced shots.
(4) Sloppy execution during the last few minutes. We again had some difficulties down the stretch dealing with Villanova's, both in the half and full court. Villanova missed some absolutely critical free throws in the last five minutes...had they hit them, the margin of victory would have been even tighter.
On a side note, I just wanted to point out that were are huge fans our your blog. Keep up the great work!
I second most of the IBP's sentiments.
First, I'm definitely a big fan of bigeasthoops.com.
Second, Georgetown just tightened up too much in the second half. I think that they had too much time to think about how great they played in the beginning of the game during the halftime break. They were too concerned with the game ending, and not concerned enough with playing their game.
Nova also did a much better job of denying Hibbert down low (much like they did in the first two games). I haven't checked the box score, but I would imagine that Roy's numbers weren't nearly as good after intermission. That being said, he played fantastic before the break.
The Wildcats also turned up the intensity on their press. Georgetown had a much harder time getting across the halfcourt line, and ended up making some ill advised passes. Jonathan Wallace, who has been so solid overall this season. Seems to be getting himself in a lot more difficult situations as of late.
I kept updated my blackberry here in Germany. I couldn't believe how tight the score got. I was having a celebratory beer and next think I know it is a game! Let's win tonight and EXORCISE the ghost of Esherick. I want a Big East championship and a #1 seed. I'm flying back early so I can watch the championship game tomorrow night!
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