For 10 minutes on Tuesday night, the Hoyas looked like a team that was ready to redeem its season. Unfortunately for Georgetown, the rest of the game was, disappointingly, business as usual.
In the past few seasons, the Hoyas’ 14-1 run to start off the second half would be expected against a foe like St. John’s. But for this season’s team, such a dominant stretch could not compensate for the other 35 minutes.
All-too-familiar sloppiness and bad decision-making doomed Georgetown (15-13, 6-11 Big East) to overtime and, eventually, another devastating loss. The Hoyas, up by as much as 15 with 10 minutes remaining in regulation, succumbed to the Red Storm 59-56.
“They—meaning St. John’s—did what they had to do coming down the stretch. They got shots, they got second shots, they made foul shots,” head coach John Thompson III said. “Coming down the stretch, we didn’t. We didn’t.”
After halftime it looked like the Hoyas were going to run away with the game. Georgetown locked down on defense, preventing the Red Storm from making a field goal until over 13 minutes into the period, and capitalized on the offensive end. The Hoyas stopped settling for ill-advised outside looks and found a way to score inside, quickly widening the margin.
But after a Jason Clark trey at the 10:43 mark to push the score to 45-30, the roles reversed. The Hoyas suffered their own seven minute drought from the field, while St. John’s found ways to score, hitting jumpers and taking advantage of the free throw line.
“Realistically, I thought we could get back in the game. I really did. I told them we had to get some stops,” St. John’s head coach Norm Roberts said. “We were getting it up, we were attacking, and we weren’t getting stagnant offensively.”
And get back into it they did, as the Red Storm’s Rob Thomas hit two free throws with two seconds left to send the game into overtime.
Thomas was at the heart of Georgetown’s collapse. The 54 percent free throw shooter hit all six of his attempts from the line, including four in the final minute of regulation, en route to a career high 16 points. The red-shirt sophomore also had seven rebounds, the most crucial of which was pulled straight from the hands of Greg Monroe, leading to two final minute free throw attempts.
Monroe led Hoya scoring with 18 points. The big man also had just five rebounds, part of a pitiful Hoya performance on the boards. St. John’s, despite starting no player taller than 6’8,” out-rebounded Georgetown 42-22.
“I just think they did a better job of pursuing the ball than we did,” Thompson said. “That can’t happen. The disparity can’t be that big and we win.”
The Hoyas missed the tough presence of sophomore Austin Freeman, who sat out the game with a hip pointer injury suffered in practice Monday.
The two teams went back and forth in overtime, Georgetown never allowing the Red Storm’s momentum to carry them away. But turnovers and missed opportunities ultimately sunk the Hoyas. The final straw came with 44 seconds remaining, as Monroe got the ball under the basket, the Hoyas trailing by one. Rather than going up for a shot over his shorter defender, the freshman attempted a difficult pass to a cutting Jessie Sapp and threw the ball out of bounds.
He may have thrown the Hoyas’ season away with it.
The Hoyas have one more Big East regular season game left on their schedule this Saturday against Depaul.
