In the country’s most physical conference, the rule of law is usually to let the little contact go, but the refs ignored very little in Monday night’s Big East slugfest between the eighth-ranked Hoyas (20-3, 10-2 BE) and the Wildcats of Villanova (14-9, 4-7 BE). The two teams combined for 48 fouls on the night, but the only one anyone will remember is the last.
The lead-up was familiar: tie game 53-53, seconds left, sophomore guard Jeremiah Rivers defending on-ball. Opposite Rivers was another sophomore guard, Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds. Reynolds, a proven Hoya-slayer, had already scored a game-high 24 points and there wasn’t a single person in the Verizon Center who didn’t expect him to handle the ball on the final possession.
“An on-ball for Scottie,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said of what they expected on the final possession. “We expected an isolation on-ball and as they always do they put the ball in his hands.”
Rivers didn’t give an inch to Reynolds, riding him to the baseline and forcing the turnover.
“Everybody knew who was going to take the last shot,” Rivers said. “We didn’t want to foul him because they were in the bonus, so I just tried to stay in front of him and not let him get a shot off. He refuted the screen and went baseline, then he ran out of places to go.”
The ball found its way into the hands of senior guard Jonathan Wallace, the Hoyas’ all-time leading three-point shooter who’s been bogged down by an ongoing dialogue about his senior slump. The co-captain heeded his coach’s advice and took off running down the sideline. In his way was Villanova freshman Corey Stokes. Call it freshman jitters or an adrenaline-induced mishap, but Stokes planted his hip into Wallace and sent him out of bounds with .1 seconds left to play.
“I can’t complain about [the call],” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “I couldn’t even see it.”
“At first I thought I stepped out of bounds,” Wallace said of the play. “But I was nudged and a call’s a call.”
Despite his recent shooting woes, there was never much doubt that the game was over with Wallace on the line.
“Jonathan Wallace is as cold as ice when it comes to hitting free throws,” senior center Roy Hibbert said.
Wallace did not disappoint, swishing the game-winner and adding the second amidst a deafening roar for the 55-53 victory—their first victory against the Wildcats in the Verizon Center and the first home win over the long-time rival since 1997.
The Hoyas emerged from the locker room to start the second half down 29-28. Villanova came out inspired, opening up the second-half scoring with a rim-rattling putback dunk from junior forward Dwayne Anderson. The Wildcats punished Georgetown on the boards in the early-goings, pulling down five offensive rebounds in the first two minutes of the half. Villanova out-rebounded the Hoyas 41-35 on the night.
But as it has done so many times this season, Georgetown’s Big East-best defense clamped down. The Wildcats went nearly 12 minutes without a field goal after the Anderson dunk, and were 4-31 (12.9 percent) from the floor and 0-13 from behind the arc in the second half.
“Our communication got a whole lot better in the second half,” Thompson said. “We tried to really guard the three point line, because they’re one of those teams that can light it up.”
With the Villanova offense shut down, the Hoyas went to work on the Wildcats’ pesky 1-2-2 three-quarter-court press, a defensive scheme that has given Georgetown trouble the last few years.
“It causes problems because we end up taking eight seconds to get across [half court], plus four to six seconds to get organized,” Thompson said of the press. “Then you just don’t have time [to set up the offense]. What we wanted to focus on is beating the pressure and getting into our sets.”
“[The 1-2-2] kept us in it for a while,” Wright said. “It created turnovers early on, but at the end they got it down pretty well and we were getting some mismatches in the back. It was a chess match, a good game—fun to coach.”
The Hoyas got most of their offensive production from Wallace (15 points), Hibbert (13 points) and sophomore forward DaJuan Summers (12 points).
Villanova managed to stay in the game despite their abysmal shooting by taking advantage of the numerous free throw attempts that the whistle-happy officiating crew provided. The Wildcats were 22-27 (81.5 percent) from the line, while the Hoyas were 16-24 (66.7 percent).
But it was Georgetown that claimed the two most important ones.
