The Georgetown Hoyas’ women’s basketball team has struggled throughout this season, while being decimated by injuries including a leg stress fracture to preseason First-Team All Big East sophomore forward Rebekkah Brunson. As a result, the Hoyas have not lived up to expectations, finishing with a 12-15 overall record and a 4-12 mark in the Big East Conference, after finishing 17-15 overall and 6-10 in the Big East last year.
Brunson has missed 10 games this year due to injury. Junior forward Nok Duany, sophomore forward Varda Tamoulianis and junior guard Shawntese Charles have also missed time. “We have a good group of girls, and we’ve worked very hard this season,” Head Coach Patrick Knapp said. “We’ve probably lost over 50 player games to injuries this season.”
Still, Knapp expressed his displeasure with the team’s performance this year. “I don’t think we’ve handled the injury situation well,” he said. “Particularly during [Brunson’s] injury we didn’t step up. We have not performed at the level we need to.”
However, the Hoyas have one more chance to salvage their year with a trip to the Big East Tournament starting on March 2 at Rutgers University in Piscataway N.J. The Hoyas will be the No. 12 seed, taking on the No. 5 Miami Hurricanes at noon on March 2. In their meeting earlier this year on Feb. 13 at McDonough Gymnasium, the Hoyas lost to the Hurricanes 64-56 due to dominating inside play from Miami sophomore forwards Shaquana Wilkins and Chanivia Broussard and because of poor shooting from the Hoyas.
“The Big East Tournament gives you new life,” Knapp said. “We can play a lot better against Miami this time around. We can beat them, but I think we have to defend them a lot better and shoot better,” he said.
In the past week, the Hoyas lost to Big East opponents Seton Hall and Notre Dame. At home against No. 22 Notre Dame on Saturday, the Hoyas were outscored 49-28 in the second half and fell to the Irish 86-66. Duany led the Hoyas in scoring with 21, but their defense couldn’t contain Irish junior guard Alicia Ratay, who led all scorers with 24.
Against the Pirates, Georgetown was held to 32.5 percent shooting in a 73-64 loss on Tuesday. Senior captain guard Leslie Walker, playing in her last regular season game for the Hoyas, led Georgetown with 19 points.
