On Wednesday night, No. 11 Georgetown (20-4, 10-3 Big East) proved why it sits atop the Big East in a bucket-fest victory over DePaul (11-15, 2-11 Big East). The Hoyas’ 90-66 win at the Verizon Center yielded their highest point total of the year.
Freshman guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera racked up a career-high of 33 points. Smith-Rivera became the first Hoya to score this many points since Victor Page scored 34 in 1996. The freshman guard shot a sizzling 10-of-12 from the floor including 5-of-6 from three point range.
“He’s coming along,” said Head Coach John Thompson III. “He puts the ball in the basket. As the year has progressed, he’s gotten a little more comfortable. He knows where his shot are coming from. He has the ability to score like he did today, but he also has the ability to get others involved and get his teammates shots.”
Smith-Rivera was not the only Hoya to have a hot night, as Georgetown shot 60 percent. Three other Hoyas, junior forward Nate Lubick, sophomore guard Jabril Trawick, and sophomore forward Otto Porter Jr., scored in double figures. Lubick recorded 15 points, 3 assists and a team-high of 8 rebounds.
The Hoyas were dominated on the boards, though as DePaul outrebounded Georgetown 33-29 and 18-5 on the offensive boards.
“We needed to focus a little bit more at the defensive end,” said Thompson. “For the entire game, [DePaul] did a very good job on the boards. Going into the game, the thing that we wanted to take away from them was their second shots and their transition baskets and early on I don’t think we did a good job with that.”
The game was not decided early, as the Hoyas let the Blue Demons hang around in the first half. DePaul jumped out to a 7-2 lead after some sluggish Hoya defense. Georgetown would respond, though, as Smith-Rivera’s first of many three-pointers began a Georgetown 10-2 run that put the Hoyas ahead 15-11 with 11:17 left in the half.
Even so, the Blue and Gray could not shake DePaul until right before intermission. In the final 6:17 of the half, Trawick scored 7 points to help Georgetown take a 43-29 lead at halftime.
“We got to a point where we were just trading buckets. We realized we needed to defend and rebound,” said Lubick. “I think that really changed the game as we got a line of stops and finally boxed out and rebounded. We were able to score in transition and get something going.”
The Hoyas continued to add to their lead in the second half as Smith-Rivera took over. Less than three minutes into the half, Smith-Rivera scored 7 straight points to make the score 54-35 and put the game out of reach.
The Hoyas are now setting their sights on a meeting at No. 8 Syracuse’s home court on Saturday at 4 p.m. The contest will be the last between Georgetown and Syracuse at the Carrier Dome with both teams in the Big East. Syracuse is leaving for the ACC next year, and according to Syracuse.com, 35,012 are supposed to attend the game, which would set an NCAA attendance record.
Syracuse has won its past two games but has stumbled before, losing three of their last seven. After this offensive showing, the Hoyas will be riding the high into the Dome this weekend in hopes to take sole control of first place in the Big East.
