The Georgetown Hoyas women’s basketball team (7-18, 2-15 Big East) couldn’t quite pull off an upset over the Villanova Wildcats (19-7, 13-4 Big East), recording their eighth-straight loss Tuesday night, 73-61. The loss marks the Hoyas last home game of the season. Senior forward Jillian Archer led the Hoyas in scoring with 18 points, while junior forward Maddy Siegrist led the Wildcats with 26 points on four-of-seven shooting from three.
Georgetown started the game off strong with three-pointers from freshman center Ariel Jenkins and graduate guard Milan Bolden-Morris. They led the Wildcats for most of the first quarter, but with 25 seconds left, Villanova freshman guard Lucy Olsen made a free throw to tie things up at 13, and a buzzer-beating Olsen three-pointer gave the Wildcats the lead 16-13.
In the second quarter, the Hoyas picked things up defensively. Villanova was getting flustered by their press, and even when they did manage to break it, they weren’t scoring much. Georgetown picked up a few and-one layups and blocks to outscore the Wildcats in the second quarter and go up 31-27 heading into halftime.
Georgetown’s press was much less effective in the second half. Once Villanova knew how to break it, the Hoyas weren’t fast enough getting back on defense, allowing for open threes. The Wildcats were lights out from behind the arc, shooting six-of-eight in the third quarter alone. Siegrist hit all four of her attempted three-pointers in the third quarter, and sophomore guard Bella Runyan hit two more. A three-pointer from graduate guard Mary Clougherty was enough to cut the score to single digits, 55-46 Villanova to close out the quarter.
The fourth quarter was much of the same. Once the Wildcats got going, they couldn’t be stopped, going up by 18 with under two minutes to play. At that point, the game was over. The Hoyas sent in their bench and closed out the game with a 7-1 run for a final score of 73-61.
One of the biggest challenges the Hoyas faced against Villanova was their inability to find the basket from deep, shooting four out of fourteen from three. They struggled offensively in general, shooting only 37.5 percent from the field and an abysmal 68 percent on free throws.
Defensively, despite looking strong in the second quarter, the Hoyas couldn’t maintain their press. They also couldn’t stop Siegrist. While they did manage to hold her to seven-of-23 shooting from the field (30.4 percent, as compared to her average 49.6 percent), they allowed her to shoot 57.1 percent from three, canceling out any benefit of her limited points from the field.
Moving forward, the Hoyas need to improve on their three-point and free throw shooting; if either one had been stronger Tuesday night, there could have been a different result.
The Hoyas play next on Friday, Feb. 25 in Cincinnati, Ohio against Xavier (9-17, 4-13 Big East). The last time the two teams faced, Georgetown lost by just three points in overtime, 70-67. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m., and the game will be broadcasted live on FloSports and BEDN. For continued coverage of all Georgetown sports, follow @GUVoiceSports on Twitter.
