It’s hard to say how one should feel about this team heading into postseason play.
Last week, after beating DePaul (12-18, 6-11 Big East), the Hoyas (19-9, 11-6 Big East) were second in the Big East. Now, after losing badly to St. John’s (20-9, 9-7 Big East) and then beating Butler (21-9, 11-6 Big East) in a hostile road environment on senior night, Georgetown once again owns a partial share of the second spot in the conference standings.
“If you win it’s good. If you lose you say you had too much time off.”
That’s what Coach John Thompson III had to say about the week of rest the Hoyas had between the DePaul game and this past Saturday’s game against St. John’s. With the performance the Hoyas submitted in Madison Square Garden on the way to a 70-81 loss, it seemed as if they may have had too much time off.
Junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera gave a heroic effort, finishing the night with 29 points, and on a night when most of his teammates could not find their shooting touch, he received little help.
The early action looked promising for the Hoyas. D’Angelo Harrison, the Red Storm’s leading scorer, picked up two early fouls and played almost no part in the first half of the game. But the foul trouble would go both ways, as senior forward Joshua Smith had to sit out for large portions of the game.
“You have to give St. John’s credit for that. That was their game plan [to draw fouls on Smith]. Not having him out there definitely hurt,” Thompson said.
A series of transition layups gave St. John’s a double-digit lead that they would take into the break, and although they hung around for most of the second half, the Hoyas never managed to threaten the Red Storm’s lead.
“At Georgetown they slugged us from start to finish…[This game] we slugged them from start to finish. … It was a complete reversal,” St. John’s Head Coach Steve Lavin said.
Having dropped to fourth in the Big East with the loss to St. John’s, the Hoyas travelled to Butler needing a win to stay in contention for the second seed in the Big East Tournament. That is exactly what they got on Tuesday, defeating the Bulldogs 60-54 for their best road win of the season.
“It think that’s an outstanding win. I think that’s an outstanding team. They don’t make mistakes, they don’t hurt themselves at either end of the court,” Thompson said. “You have to come in and find a way to win.”
The biggest play of the game was not a shot, but a steal after a missed free throw. The away team led by two with 10.2 on the clock when Joshua Smith’s missed free throw attempt dropped to Butler’s Kameron Woods. Smith-Rivera, who at six foot three inches, is six inches shorter than Woods, managed to snatch the ball from him before hitting the two free throws that followed to seal the game for the Hoyas.
“He had the ball, and coach usually tells me there to sprint back on defense, but Woods exposed the ball,” Smith-Rivera said. “In my mind, it was either get it, or I would have been in trouble. I got it.”
Smith-Rivera, playing in his home state of Indiana with many friends and family members in attendance, scored 16 points while grabbing seven rebounds, both team-highs.
Georgetown shut down the Bulldogs’ offense in the first half, allowing them only 24 points. On the other end of the floor, senior guard Jabril Trawick scored nine points and freshman guard Tre Campbell added eight, including two three-pointers, to put the Hoyas up by six at the half.
The home team would return to the floor with renewed energy, and leading scorer Kellen Dunham hit three straight jump-shots to give Butler a 40-39 lead. Freshman forward Isaac Copeland would then sink two free-throws to return the edge to the visitors, and while it was far from safe, the Hoyas would hold on to this lead for the rest of the game.
“We would get up, and every time we’d get up they would make a run at us and then this fabulous crowd they have here would get into it,” Thompson said. “It was not always pretty, in fact, it was very ugly, but we responded when they came back at us.”
Now only Saturday’s game against Seton Hall (16-12, 6-10 Big East) at Verizon Center separates the Hoyas from postseason play. Georgetown needs a win against the struggling Pirates in order to give themselves a shot at the second seed in the Big East Tournament, a spot which Providence (20-9, 10-6 Big East) and Butler also hope to secure.
