The Georgetown women’s basketball team dropped their second straight game at home, losing to Pittsburgh 85-81 Saturday and again to a Seton Hall team coming off of a four game losing streak, 63-47 Wednesday night at McDonough Gymnasium. The loss drops the Hoyas to 6-12 overall and 1-6 in the Big East.
On Saturday, the Hoyas began the first half leading the Panthers by as much as nine points. Towards the end of the half, however, the Panthers struck back with an explosive offensive effort, taking a 40-38 lead to end the first half. Pittsburgh’s run was led by first-year center Marcedes Walker, named this week’s Big East Co-Freshman of the Week. Walker’s 6’3’’ size helped break the Georgetown double teams as she finished the first period with 14 points. Walker, who normally averages 12.8 points per game, finished the game with 20 points.
“If I’m standing behind her on defense, she just backs me because she’s stronger,” senior forward Varda Tamoulianis said.
In the second half, it was all Pittsburgh as the Hoyas never reclaimed the lead they lost towards the end of the first period. The Panthers came out with a fast-paced offense led by senior center Allisha Morris, who scored all of her 22 points in the second half.
Despite the loss, the Hoyas put on an impressive offensive effort. The 81 points against the Panthers is the most Georgetown has scored all season in a loss, but it was the defense that came up a little short. Pittsburgh’s domination inside kept them in the game, getting 17 second-chance points off of offensive rebounds to Georgetown’s eight. The Hoyas still dominated the Panthers on the fast break, though, netting 19 points to the Panthers’ five.
“We’ve got to play better defense; for once, it wasn’t our offense that was the problem,” Head Coach Terri Williams Flournoy said.
In spite of the bigger post players, Georgetown outscored the Panthers in the paint, 40-36, but, as in the past few games, the Hoyas’ bench came up small, ending up outscored 47-11. The Hoyas’ struggle coming off the bench is due to injuries that have left the Hoyas with very limited reserves.
“We’ve been fighting injuries off the bench,” Williams-Flournoy said. “We’ve known since the beginning of the season that there wasn’t a whole lot to get off the bench, so basically anything we get out of the bench is good.”
Against Seton Hall, it was much of the same as the Hoyas started off playing well in the first half, leading by seven at one point. Towards the end of the period, the Pirates took a 25-22 lead that set the stage for the rest of the game. In this game, however, shots were not dropping for Georgetown, and they finished the game hitting only 30.9 percent of their field goals. Georgetown was out-rebounded 43-32 as their defense struggled once more.
“I don’t why we’re not putting it all together,” junior guard Bethany LeSueur said. “For me, my whole idea is and always has been is you play good defense and it turns into good offense. I don’t why we can’t put it all together; some games we do good on offense and then we just let up on defense. Sometimes we play great defense and can’t hit a shot.”
The Hoyas travel to Providence to take on the Friars on Saturday Jan. 29th at 2 p.m. The Friars are 0-6 in the Big East and dropped their last game to No. 14 Boston College.
