On Saturday, Jan. 24, Georgetown men’s basketball (10-10, 2-7 BIG EAST) traveled to Rhode Island to take on the Providence College Friars (9-11, 2-7 BIG EAST). This conference matchup took on significance beyond Ed Cooley’s coaching past with Providence; the Hoyas proved their capabilities as a second-half team, winning 81-78.
Georgetown has seemingly dropped the ball on closing out games this season despite the apparent strength of the roster. Most notably, against UConn on Jan. 17, the Hoyas fell two points short of pushing the game to overtime. A couple of launched three pointers and last-second free throws were all that stood between the Hoyas unseating the No. 3 team in the country. Junior guard KJ Lewis had the roughest go of it all. Despite his twelve points, his rushed three-point shot almost at the buzzer crushed the Hoya hopes for victory.
Thankfully, Lewis broke out of the mold against the Friars. His 26 points nearly singlehandedly closed the gap on the 21-point lead Providence held near the beginning of the second half.
Saturday’s game started close, though scoring was slow for most of the first half. With ten minutes remaining in the first half, Georgetown was within four, down 13-17. This was the closest the Hoyas were able to pressure the Friars until the final five minutes of the game.
The slow start, characterized by plenty of unfruitful opportunities, put Georgetown on their heels for the remainder of the first half. The Hoyas shot 35% from the field and went only 1-12 on three pointers.
Unlike the Hoyas, the Friars did not struggle to make their shots, going 50% from the field and 44% from three. Their ability to put the ball through the net allowed them to pull away towards the end of the first half and go up 43-25 at halftime.
Head coach Ed Cooley has had his ups and downs motivating his team this season, but whatever he said during halftime clearly worked. Down by 21 points with 15 minutes left in the game, the Hoyas staged a massive comeback, thanks to superior shooting and an outstanding performance by Lewis and senior center Vince Iwuchukwu, who combined for 35 of the Hoyas’ 56 second-half points.
The comeback took the Hoyas the entirety of the second half to orchestrate—they finally pushed ahead of the Friars with 2:55 left in the game on a three-pointer by sophomore forward Caleb Williams.
For the next three minutes, both teams traded scores, but Providence was not able to reclaim their lead. The game ended 81-78 to Georgetown.
The main driver of Georgetown’s success was their stellar shooting performance in the second half. They bounced back well after failing to sink shots in the first and shot 67% from the field and an astounding 61% from three in the second half.
Ed Cooley has been taking the recent variability of the team hard, as evidenced in his post-game press conferences. After a tough loss to Seton Hall (14-5, 4-4 BIG EAST) on Jan. 10, Cooley felt that he let his players down:
“We may not be where we need to be record-wise, but I know I have a talented group that needs to be a little bit more disciplined,” he said. “I think we have a tough group that has to be a little bit more disciplined … I got to pick our group up.”
Still, Cooley recognizes the team’s effort. After the Jan. 17 UConn loss, he said, “I don’t want our men to doubt what we’re doing because we’re right there at the doorstep.”
Their next loss to Villanova on Jan. 21 put a dent in that confidence. Cooley noted the Hoyas’ inability to close after losing to Villanova (15-5, 6-3 BIG EAST): “Obviously not very happy with the way we played in the second half…I didn’t like our overall team discipline today.”
Arguably, team discipline starts at the top. Hoya fans feel frustrated by the team’s record, and their inability to finish important games has caused some of that frustration to land on Cooley.
Kieran Singh (CAS ’28), is disappointed by the direction of the season.
“The UConn game was especially promising” for the team, he told the Voice. “But considering [Cooley’s] salary and the talent on the team I expected more from this season. Although, there is still time to turn it around.”
The performance by Lewis and team against Providence reminds Hoya fans that there are more games to be played. Hopefully this marks a shift towards a second half of the season that Hoya fans can be excited about.
Colin Dhaliwal (MSB ’27), treasurer of Hoya Blue, thinks the Hoyas have the potential to win, but he does not dispute the fact that their inability to finish games leaves them deserving of the record they hold:
“I don’t think our current record reflects where we should be but at the same time we’ve played so poorly…that we don’t really deserve anything more than being .500 overall.”
Nevertheless, Dhaliwal is cautiously optimistic about the team’s prospects going forward.
“We’ve seen flashes of the team playing incredibly well… but the question is, can they be consistent with those performances for the remainder of the BIG EAST games and take any success with them into the [BIG EAST] tournament?”
The Hoyas will return home to try to maintain their current success on Wednesday, Jan. 28 against DePaul University (11-8, 3-5 BIG EAST) at 8:30 p.m. EST at Capital One Arena.
