Six losses in seven games. It’s as ignominious a streak as Georgetown basketball has seen since John Thompson III took the reins of the program in 2004. With a 13-9 record, and 4-7 record in the Big East, the Hoyas have quickly fallen from the top 10 to dangerously near the NCAA tournament bubble.
On January 14, such a downward spiral was inconceivable. By soundly drubbing their streaking rival Syracuse (then ranked #8) 88-74, the Hoyas supposedly established their legitimacy as Big East contenders.
But then came Duke. Then West Virginia. Then Seton Hall.
And so it continued.
Now, on February 14, Georgetown will play the Orange again—only this time, the Hoyas are looking for legitimacy as a NCAA tournament team, and hoping to avoid a Valentine’s Day massacre.
The key to Georgetown’s early-season success was its starting five, whose talent and effort won games and compensated for a shallow bench. But the starters have fallen back as of late, never more conspicuously than in the Hoyas’ most recent loss to Cincinnati, when Thompson benched the entire group four minutes into the game.
“The first group came out, and it was just flat,” Thompson said after the game. “We have guys that can get in there and contribute, so I put those guys in. And things picked up a little bit.”
In the beginning of the season, a lineup comprised completely of reserves would have spelled doom for the Hoyas, especially in a Big East game. But against the Bearcats, the second five started a 9-2 run that brought Georgetown back into the game, playing with the energy that the starters had lacked.
Earlier in the season Thompson rarely went deeper than three players off his bench in close games, and even then he did this only to give his starters a breather. But now the reserves have developed into significant role players.
“I think they’ve always had it in them,” senior guard Jessie Sapp said. “It’s just that most of these guys are coming into this new system, and they’re just a little nervous. It took everybody a little while to get used to the offense.”
The bench’s development could not have come any sooner for the Hoyas. The rough-and-tumble Big East demands that teams come ready to play 40 minutes, and every opponent is prepared to wear Georgetown down.
This need for depth is only exacerbated by the recent vulnerability of Georgetown’s starting five. None of the first squad has been very consistent over the streak, but the most severe case is Sapp, who is all but fading into oblivion. On Saturday he played just six minutes and was absent the second half, for reasons Thompson would only describe as a “coach’s decision.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the starting lineup may change for Syracuse.
“That’s not to say it’s not going to be the same, but no, [the lineup is not set],” Thompson said after Saturday’s loss.
With a week off—the team’s longest break since December—Thompson has plenty of time to figure out how, and with whom, to progress. The team that takes the floor in the Carrier Dome on Valentine’s Day will not be determined by what happened at the Verizon Center, but by what happens in McDonough Gym.
“From 4 to 7 everyday, that’s where they gain my confidence,” Thompson said.
Tip-off is at noon on Saturday at Syracuse, with coverage on ESPN.
