Ever since showing tantalizing promise with victories over Memphis and Connecticut, the Hoya faithful have waited for their struggling team to live up to their early season potential. As the season winds down, it looks like that may never happen.
“That’s what hurts the most, because we feel like we’re right there, and we just can’t turn the corner,” sophomore Chris Wright lamented after a 76-58 loss to Louisville. “That next step, we just haven’t made it yet.”
The loss likely eliminates the possibility of Georgetown earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The Hoyas (14-12, 5-10 Big East) are now guaranteed to finish with a losing conference record.
Things didn’t look good for the Hoyas from the start on Monday, as Louisville came out absolutely on fire. The Cardinals didn’t miss a field goal for more than ten minutes to start the game, with their first miss coming at the 9:02 mark. By the end of the first half, Louisville had put on an impressive shooting performance of 14-of-20 from the field, an astounding 70 percent. Even more remarkable was the team’s long range shooting. They were perfect from beyond the arc before halftime, and consistently were able to stave off any hope of a comeback with long range daggers.
“It’s kind of deflating they’re shooting so well and we’re not, but at the same time you got to keep playing and make shots,” Wright said.
Georgetown failed to do that for most of the first half, allowing the Cardinals to extend the lead to 17 with three minutes to play. But the Hoyas then broke off a 7-0 run, capped off by an off-balance Jessie Sapp three pointer as time expired that gave them some momentum going into the locker room.
“I think [the run] helped our mood at that time,” Wright said. “It was good momentum going into halftime.”
But that momentum never really carried over. The Cardinals gave Georgetown a chance to make a run at the beginning of the second half, turning over the ball on their first three positions. The Hoyas squandered the opportunity, only cutting the lead to eight before Louisville reestablished its rhythm.
“At the start of the second half we couldn’t put the ball in the basket, and then we got a little frustrated because of that,” head coach John Thompson III said. “I’ve said before we can’t let the frustrations at one end of the floor carry over to the other end of the floor.”
The Louisville players continually took advantage of the Hoyas’ frustration. When not draining threes, the Cardinals used their big men to power inside. Junior forward Earl Clark showed he could do damage from anywhere on the court. He hit all three of his three point attempts and managed to draw enough contact inside to allow him to shoot 9-of-13 from the free throw line. He finished with 22 points, one of four Cardinals in double figures.
“They’re good, they have a lot of people they run through at the forward and center spots,” Greg Monroe said. “They’re all good and they’re all aggressive and different. And I think they kind of throw some people out of rhythm because every person does something a little different.”
Monroe scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds, but never showed any flashes of dominance. Wright led the Hoyas for the fourth straight game with 12 points, but shot 3-of-12 from the field.
The Cardinals’ defense did a very good job of keeping the Hoyas at bay. It limited Georgetown to 31.3% shooting in the second half, and an unrelenting full court press severely disrupted the Hoyas. Louisville forced 15 turnovers off which it scored 21 of its points. Georgetown clearly struggled with the pressure all night, making mistake after mistake when they were trying to bring the ball over half court.
“The press gives us another dimension, not only with steals, but with physically helping us wear other people out,” Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said.
Throughout the second half Georgetown looked poised to make a run, but seemingly whenever they were ready to make a significant dent in the lead, the Hoyas would allow their focus to lapse.
“For most of the year we’ve had a lot of peaks and valleys,” Thompson said. “We had gotten to the point where I thought we were limiting that, just in terms of our execution and our being where we should be. And today we had peaks and valleys again.”
At this point Georgetown finds itself at the bottom of the valley. But with just three games remaining in the regular season, there just isn’t time for the Hoyas to climb back to the peak.
