With three minutes left in the first half of Georgetown’s contest against the Connecticut Huskies on Tuesday night, first-year guard Tony Bethel got the ball in the open court and flew, much to the delight of the packed student section. He threaded a beautiful pass right through a Huskies defender to fellow first-year Drew Hall for an easy lay-up to put the Hoyas up, 37-28.
It was a sign of the future promise of the Hoyas; and on the next play, fellow first-year Harvey Thomas threw down an alley-oop pass from senior point guard Kevin Braswell. The future, certainly, is bright.
However, a better picture of the present Hoyas occurred with 29 seconds left in regulation. Connecticut held a 75-74 lead and the ball. With a six-second difference between the shot clock and game clock, the Hoyas let Huskies forward Caron Butler stand at the top of the key for virtually the entire duration of the clock. Connecticut missed, and the rebound came down to Braswell with six seconds remaining.
As in previous games against Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and this past Saturday against Villanova, Georgetown Head Coach Craig Esherick elected not to call a timeout to set up a better play. Braswell wildly raced down the court, and with less than a second on the clock, got the ball over to sophomore swingman Gerald Riley, who threw up a wild three-point attempt after the buzzer had sounded.
Connecticut 75, Georgetown 74. And with it, any remaining NCAA Tournament hopes may have gone up in smoke as well.
“When the rebound first came down, I was yelling for a timeout,” said Esherick in response to his decision of the final moments. “It wasn’t being recognized, and it got to the point where if I had gotten the timeout, there wouldn’t be enough time on the game clock to set something up, so I said to heck with it. Regarding the decision to press or foul at the end, I thought there was enough of a difference between the shot clock and game clock to get something off.”
With the loss, the Hoyas move to 15-10 overall, 6-7 in the Big East. They have three remaining regular season games: two road battles against Syracuse and West Virginia, and a final MCI Center date with Rutgers on March 2. Following the Rutgers game, they travel to the Big East Tournament in New York, which they will almost assuredly need to win in order to reach the NCAA Tournament this season. If, however, they lose to Syracuse and one of the lesser teams and exit in the first round of the Big East tournament, a NIT berth might even be questionable.
“Selection Sunday is March 10,” said Esherick. “When we get closer to that day, we’ll see what’s going to happen.”
Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun, with 30 years of head coaching experience, more than 600 wins and a national title to his credit was asked if he supported Georgetown’s decision making in the final moments.
“It’s interesting, because after the game, I was discussing it with my assistants,” said Calhoun. “Dave Leitao, whose been with me here for 14 years, he said he would have done the same thing that Georgetown did?if Braswell makes something happen there, they look like a genius.”
“But would you have done that?” said another reporter.
“No, I didn’t say that,” quipped Calhoun.
With 39.7 seconds left in regulation, Connecticut first-year star Ben Gordon had buried a three-pointer from the corner to run the Huskies lead to 75-72. The play was eerily similar to three-pointers made by Villanova guard Derrick Snowden and forward Brooks Sales in the final minutes of Georgetown’s 83-72 overtime loss to the Wildcats last Saturday. In that game, the Hoyas held the lead late after trailing by 11 at halftime, but let ‘Nova back into it with three-pointers and a lay-up by Snowden with 2.5 seconds remaining. In overtime, similar to problems experienced against Notre Dame, Sweetney, Wilson and Thomas all fouled out; Villanova had four players sitting on four fouls, none of whom actually fouled out. Without any more of Sweetney’s game-high 31 points or a true inside presence, the Hoyas let Villanova shoot 100 percent from the field in overtime, securing their second straight road loss to the Wildcats.
In the Connecticut game, fouls also played a major role. With 8:50 left in the game, Sweetney was able to draw a fourth foul on Huskies first-year sensation Emeka Okafor, but Okafor played out the rest of the game, grabbing 11 rebounds to pace Connecticut.
“We knew Connecticut would not quit, and we knew this was going to be a tough game,” said Esherick. “I thought for that entire game, we were pounding the ball down inside. We just couldn’t draw more fouls on them.”
Sweetney was held to 16 points and eight rebounds, a surprisingly mellow home court performance. Braswell paced the Hoyas with 19 points and Wilson recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards.
“The thing with Sweetney is, you let him loose in the lane, you’ve got trouble,” admitted Calhoun. “The game plan was, I never wanted to leave Sweetney in a big-man to big-man situation, where only one guy is covering him. Whenever he got the ball, we slid another man over to him. We realize Wilson is capable of a lot, but Sweetney is a major talent.”
The Hoyas had only eight turnovers, compared to Connecticut’s 17, and outscored the Huskies 21-7 in points off of turnovers. This solid statistic was counteracted by Georgetown’s 33.8 percent shooting from the floor, launching 65 shots and hitting only 22 of them; the Huskies shot an amazing 48.3 percent from the floor on the game.
“I’ve been telling this team all season, you guys are the best team in the Big East,” said Calhoun of his squad. “I think if you look at how we shot, defended and played in the last two minutes, they’re starting to believe that. We’re becoming a more complete team.”
The Huskies were paced by the All-American candidate Butler, with 23 points, and Gordon, with 21, two off of his career high.
“This was a tough game, and Connecticut made some great plays down the stretch,” said Esherick. “But the way we play, and the way we practice, I know we’re going to win some of these games eventually.”
Of course they will, eventually. The future is there. The present could use some work.
