Game 5 - Maryland!

"It's tough playing local teams when you're supposed to be the best team, to be honest with you." - Gary Sweaty Williams (2004)

Georgetown 75 - Maryland 48 (2008)

I am so dumbfounded by the remarkable, incredible and righteous (yes, I just went there) outcome of this game that I cannot even write coherently about it. So instead I will list a bunch of things.

Thoughts on the Game
- 14 assists on 26 field goals
- Finally won a game on the boards
- Georgetown was up 73-38 with 7 minutes left. They only scored two more points afterwards. The outcome could have been a lot worse.
- Great team effort with even scoring all around
- Austin Freeman is deceptively quick
- Jason Clark got 25 minutes and only turned the ball over twice
- And of course, Henry Sims attempted and subsquently missed another three pointer. He is now 0-7 on the season.

Implications of the Game
- Worst loss for Maryland since 2005
- Worst OOC loss for Maryland since 2000
- Fewest points scored by Maryland since 1995 (which was a 50-47 loss to UMass, not a 75-48 massacre to a local team)
- Fewest points scored in a college game by Greivis Vasquez

Random Recruiting Information
- 6 players on Georgetown roster that were also recruited by Maryland
- 53 points scored by these 6 players
- 5 players on Georgetown roster that were given offers by Maryland
- 39 combined points scored by these 5 players

- 3 players on Maryland roster that were also recruited by Georgetown
- 13 points scored by these 3 players
- 1 player on Maryland roster that was given an offer by Georgetown
- 3 points scored by this player

What does this mean? (1) Georgetown gets the top tier of local recruits. (2) Maryland unsuccessfully attempts to crack Georgetown's hold of the top recruiting school in the area. (3) Georgetown passes on Maryland's local recruits (i.e. does not extend offers) . (4) Georgetown is a better evaluator of talent. (5) Gary Williams got blindsided by JT3's arrival.

Random Observations
- Fran Fraschilla is an idiot. He tried to argue last night that players have a hard time shooting free throws on technical fouls because they do not practice free throws when the lanes are empty. I am sure every coach puts six idle people in the box during practice so one player can practice free throws. I guess that is why I sucked at basketball, I should have asked my family and friends (if I had any) to line up in the lane when I shot free throws in my driveway. If only I had known Fran's advice growing up, I coulda been a contender.
- Hubert Davis thinks Georgetown can not only win the Big East, but also the NCAA Tournament. I guess he needed to say something controversial since Bobby Knight kicked him off of the prime time squad of analysts.
- Gary Williams needs to wear an undershirt. It was either really cold in Orlando or he was icing his nips during timeouts. There is another possibility that will require me to use the words "aroused" and "stimulate" but I will leave it at that.


Good talk.

Game 4 - Tennessee

Well if college basketball games were 31 minutes long, Georgetown would have played a heck of a game. Unfortunately for the Hoyas, games last 40 minutes and in those 9 extra minutes they were outscored 33-13. Interestingly, the critical moment of the game was a set of plays eerily similar to the plays I described in detail in the Wichita State posting. Amazingly enough, Georgetown made the same mistakes as they did previously and this, in my humble and often correct opinion (my modestly never ceases to amaze me), was the reason the Hoyas lost the game.

But first, let me give credit where credit is due.
- Omar Wattad - thank you for making me eat my words. You played a great game and and deserve to be the first off the bench.
- Chris Wright - way to bounce back. You had a good game at the point and kept the turnovers in check.
- DaJuan Summers - welcome back. You are slowly un-Bowmanizing yourself.
- We hit our free throws, again.
- Our three point shooting was finally decent.
- Henry Sims - I admire your perseverance. There are now three things that are certain in life. Death, taxes and you missing at least one three pointer a game.

Now on to the fun stuff! Let's revisit that turning point in the game. 9 minutes left in the game Georgetown up 8. Greg Monroe stupidly fouls Josh Tabb as he hits an open layup. Tabb misses the free throw and Emmanuel Negedu collects an offensive rebound. He misses the layup and collects another offensive rebound. He again misses the layup but is fouled by Omar Wattad. Negedu hits the first and misses the second and surprise surprise J.P. Prince gets the offensive rebound and Tennessee resets the offense. Pass around the perimeter for a little bit and Bobby Maze nails a three pointer from the corner. In 30 seconds Tennessee cuts a 8 point lead into a 2 point lead. Game was lost right there. I am a big believer in momentum and from that point on, Tennessee had all the confidence and swagger. Georgetown had the wind knocked out of them and never recovered. Tennessee collected six offensive rebounds in the first 30 minutes of the game, and six in the last ten.

What is the reason behind this, why are we giving up so many second chance points? Well against Wichita State it was poor fundamentals. It does not matter how high you can jump if there is someone closer to the ball. Against Tennessee it was stamina. We just played 70 minutes of hard-nosed basketball in 26 hours and our starting five were tired. Tennessee played a total of eleven players, Georgetown played nine. Tennessee played two players for more than 30 minutes, Georgetown played four. The Tennessee starting five averaged 24 minutes of playing time, the Georgetown starting five averaged 33 minutes. Nine players on Tennessee saw ten or more minutes of playing time, only six Georgetown players saw that much time on the court. I can keep going but I think the point has been made. And unfortunately, lack of depth on the bench is something we are stuck with until next season.

Last year we the Heart Attack Hoyas, winning six games by three points or less. Hate to say it but this year we will be the Heart Break Hoyas, losing games in the closing minutes of the game. It's not going to be our season, but we will be better for it come next year.

Something to keep an eye on: If Maryland loses to Gonzaga tonight, we play them on Sunday. Huge game for DC bragging rights. No love loss between the Twerps and Hoyas. We have been stealing headlines, recruits and the love of the locals from them for the past five years. More to come about the non-rival rivalry should it happen.


Good talk.

Game 3 - Wichita State

I originally started this post with a nice little introduction about what I am thankful for and how I am such a happy person and how much I love puppies and cotton candy but after witnessing Georgetown completely embarrass itself on national television, I have nothing positive to say. So let's get into it.

Everyone talks about the Georgetown defense, and how they held opponents to the lowest field goal percentage in the nation last year. This stat alone means nothing. Simple multiplication tells us that if you multiply a low number by a high number, you could very well end up with the same result as multiplying two middle numbers. Example: 2 x 10 is the same as 4 x 5. So how does this relate to basketball? Wichita State shot an incredible 29% for the game. Yet they ended up with same amount of field goals as Georgetown, who shot 42%. Why? Because they took 18 more shots than Georgetown. And those 18 extra shots translate to roughly 6 more field goals which conservatively equates to 12 extra points. In the travesty known as the Davidson incident, Georgetown shot 63% vs. Davidson's 39% yet only ended up with only 4 more field goals. And we all know the end result of that game.

But gee whiz B^2, what is a better metric of success on the hardwood (I'm assuming that is what you are thinking)? Well reader, I'll tell ya. REBOUNDS. Obviously this alone doesn't determine a good team (turnovers, FT percentage and 3 pt percentage are important too) but the reason why this game against Wichita State was so close is because of rebounds, mainly offensive rebounds. Let's review a set of plays that happened at the 15 minute mark of the second half. The Shockers brought the ball upcourt and the swarming Georgetown prevented them from getting the ball into the paint. They passed around the perimeter until the shot clock ran down to 4 seconds and Reggie Chamberlain attempted a hail mary 30 foot shot which bounced off the back of the rim. Great defense. But no Georgetown player attacked the boards and A.J. Hawkins picked up an offensive rebound in the paint. On the way to the basket Hawkins was fouled by Greg Monroe and awarded two free throws. Hawkins remarkably missed both free throws, yet picked up another offensive rebound and put in an easy layup. How does this show up in the box score? Shockers are 1-2 in FG, 0-1 in three pointers and 0-2 in FT. Georgetown picks up a foul. What does it really mean? Georgetown gave the Shockers two extra opportunities to score, played hard-nosed defense for 40 seconds and ended up in the same situation as if they didn't even run back to play defense. This is particularly critical for a team that lacks depth like Georgetown because playing defense tires out players more than running the offense.

I have said it before and will say it again. We will get absolutely destroyed in the Big East if we give teams 2 or 3 extra chances to score on each possession. Here are some more thoughts on the game.

- Jesse Sapp and Chris Wright: No look passes are awesome when they work and idiotic when they don't. I would suggest focusing on completing the pass before making it look pretty.
- Henry Sims: You haven't made a three pointer this season, so please stop taking them. We need your 6'10'' frame down low for... wait for it... rebounding.
- DaJuan Summers: Thanks for showing up in the second half.
- DaJuan Summers: Where were you in the first half, especially during that ten and half minute stretch were we didn't make a field goal.
- Chris Wright: Maybe I was a little too high on you in the previous posts, you looked lost today.
- Greg Monroe: Your defense was phenomenal in the first half, don't worry about fouling out, you got hosed on fouls 3 and 4.
- Jason Clark: 4 turnovers and 3 fouls in 11 minutes. I hope this will be the only time I am happy to see Omar Wattad come in over you.
- G'town team: Thanks for hitting your FT at the end of the game, the only reason we squeaked this one out today.
- Gregg Marshall: Kudos to you for showing every other team how to beat us - play zone. We are a poor outside shooting team as it is, when you pressed us on the inbound and ran the 2-3 zone on our half court sets we looked like an intramural team. Good job doing your homework, those "moral" victories will turn into real ones soon enough.

As you can probably tell by previous posts, I am pretty down on the team when we play well. But I am also semi-optimistic when we play poorly. We made a lot of mistakes today that can be attributed to our youth and easily fixed. Tomorrow's matchup against Tennessee will not be as bad as people think. I think we match up with them pretty well. The determining factor will be us staying out of foul trouble.


Good talk.