#9 Georgetown (13-1, 3-0) at West Virginia (12-4, 2-1) Recap

Well, we all knew that the streak couldn't last forever, and many people expected Georgetown to lose this game to the Mountaineers. Perhaps it was the hangover from the Marquette comeback, or perhaps it was simply that Georgetown has had serious problems with playing West Virginia over the past 5 years (they haven't won since the 2007-2008 season). Additionally, despite thrilling wins against Louisville and Marquette, the team has shown some rather lengthy poor stretches of play, and failing to rectify some of their issues was bound to prove costly against a quality team such as West Virginia on the road. The streak of 11 straight wins is over, but there is no reason to think this team couldn't start another one just as long with their home matchup against Cincinnati on Monday.

This game should provide a very concerning image for Hoya fans. Hollis Thompson (13) and Jason Clark (12) took the most and second most number of shots, respectively. Clark shot 4 three-pointers and Hollis shot 3. What is concerning about this is that this sort of stat line is what we expected to see from the Hoyas in EVERY GAME coming into this season. Everybody expected Thompson and Clark would be in control of every game and they would be this team's top scorers by a wide margin. Hoya fans can now see what this team does when that is the case. Just to be sure I'm making it perfectly clear, this means that this team LOSES when Hollis and Jason are the team's only shooting options. We should all take some time to be thankful that role players like Sims, Starks, and Porter have found ways to support this team over the first half of this season, because we would be looking at a much uglier standing if this were not the case. But, seeing as we can (hopefully) count on this new and improved Georgetown squad to bounce back from this defeat, we can be confident in assuming this won't happen too many more times in Big East play.

Likes:

Hollis Thompson Shooting Early and Often - Not that I want to advocate this sort of scoring proportion on a regular basis, but Hollis accounted for half of Georgetown's offense in the first half, scoring 13 points on 4-6 shooting with 4 of 6 free throws. Maybe JTIII and the players read my post about the Marquette game and realized how important feeding a hot shooter can be. I mentioned earlier that Hollis and Clark should not always be leading this team in shots taken, but make sure Hollis gets his looks, he does shoot just under 50% from 3-point land after all.

The Effectiveness of the Press - Georgetown spent about 27 of the game's 40 minutes using a full-court press during West Virginia possessions. 6 of the Mountaineers' 16 turnovers came as a direct result of the press. 6 turnovers were committed before West Virginia could even set up their offense. This is significant because the Mountaineers really never had a chance to find a shot on those 6 possessions. Had Georgetown been performing better in other aspects of the game, points earned off the press might have proven to be the winning margin for the Hoyas.

Henry Sims' Free Throw Shooting - Gotta be honest, this one was a stretch, but I felt I needed a third thing to like. Hank was a perfect 4-4 from the line, which isn't totally out of the norm for the big man, who shoots about 75% from the line. It would be nice seeing him get a few more free throw attempts from GOING UP STRONG in the paint, rather than falling away from defenders to take shots in the lane, though.

Dislikes:

Nate Lubick's Worthlessness - Get ready folks, there are going to be a lot of points in this section. First off is the complete ineptitude of Nate Lubick. Forget his 4 points on 2-2 shooting, what I'm focused on is the 15 minutes it took for him to accrue 5 fouls and disqualify himself. 15 minutes Nate? Really? It's not like these were well-used either. Listed are the instances of each one of his fouls: 1) Loose ball on the offensive end with 2 Mountaineers in front of him, no chance for the rebound. 2) Reaching over a Mountaineer ball-handler in the paint, attempting to knock away a pass. 3) Fouling Darryl Bryant as he shot a 3-pointer. 4) Running into a Mountaineer when trying to execute a trap. 5) Another over-the-back foul while attempting to get an offensive rebound. Come on Nate, our coaches told us when we were little that reaching and over-the-back were senseless fouls. If we actually NEEDED him out there, I'd be more pissed, but this is simply another exercise in futility for Lubick.

Three-Point Shooting - Not much that needs to be said here other than that the Hoyas went 2-14 shooting 3's. The Mavericks went 1-19 shooting from three-point land the other night and got curb-stomped by the Spurs. The only reason this game was closer was because West Virginia was equally bad...but for only one half. The Mountaineers ended up shooting a respectable 4-12 from three after finishing the first half 1-6. Also, someone needs to tell Otto and Whittington that they shouldn't be shooting 3-pointers, that is not where we need them. That line should be reserved for Hollis, Clark, Markel, and Lubick when he's decided he wants to spend more time getting splinters in his ass.

Getting Bowled Over by Darryl Bryant and Kevin Jones - Bryant and Jones came into this game averaging 18 and 19.6 points per game, respectively. Bryant finished with 25 and Jones finished with 22. Jones averages 11.6 rebounds per game. In this game, he got 16. Here's a clue, guys: The quickest way to lose to a team is to allow their two best players to have above-average days. The next highest scorer was Gary Browne, who put up 12, with 6 coming from the free throw line. Not a good job at focusing on this team's only two real threats.

Again, Allowing the Opponent Into the Bonus Waaaaaay Too Early - The Mountaineers came into this game averaging 64% from the charity stripe. Not too great, so we should be ok with letting them on the line a few times right? I don't think any of us would consider 31 free throw attempts "a few". Well boys and girls, that's how many free throw attempts the Mountaineers got. They hit 22 of them, 71% for the game. The team scored 74 points and 22 came from the foul line. For those of you SFSers out there, that's almost a third of their points from the line. Almost a third of their points came from uncontested foul shots. The Hoyas only SHOT 20 free throws! Oh, by the way, in case anybody is wondering how West Virginia managed so many free throw attempts, it's because they spent about half the game in the bonus. No, that wasn't a typo, I said half. West Virginia was into the bonus with 8:46 to go in the first half and 9:43 to go in the second. Again, for you SFSers, that's 18 minutes and 29 seconds of free throws. I don't care how bad they shoot from the line, you cannot put a team to the line that early in each half and expect to win.

Henry Sims' Shot Selection - Here is the list of the 10 shots that Henry Sims took today: Lay-up (missed), blocked hook shot, 17-foot jumper, 17-foot jumper, 5-foot hook, 5-foot hook, 7-foot hook, 15-foot jumper, 19-foot jumper, 6-foot jumper. How many of those were dunks? How many of those were put-backs off of misses? How many were layups made? None, absolutely none. I like Henry's desire to be like the great Kareem and bring back the sky hook, but for God's sake, can we please tell this guy to play tough around the rim and stop settling for dipsy-do hooks and deep jumpers? Give me a break Hank.

Inability to Obtain a Lead - Now I know you all might be saying "wait a second Jordan, didn't Georgetown start this game winning 4-0?" Well yes, you would be correct, but after the Mountaineers went on a 9-0 run, Georgetown never saw the lead again. Despite this, Georgetown had numerous opportunities. After West Virginia took a 5-4 lead with 15:38 to go in the 1st half, Georgetown had 7 possessions on which they could have taken the lead with just a 2-point shot. On those 7 possessions, Georgetown shot 0-5 and had 2 turnovers. The Hoyas were never any better than tied for the last 35 and a half minutes of the game.

Three Key Plays You May Not Remember:

1) With the game tied at 11 and 10:30 remaining in the first half, Hollis Thompson stole the ball from a cutting Darryl Bryant and was fouled about 10 seconds later by Aaron Brown. Right after the Hoyas inbounded the ball, Otto Porter was slapped with a foul for shoving Deniz Kilicli in the paint. Kevin Jones layed the ball in the hoop easily on the Mountaineers' next possession to retake the lead for West Virginia. Needless to say, this careless foul prevented Georgetown from taking advantage of an opportunity to regain the lead they took early in the game.

2) The game was again tied, this time at 27, with about a minute and a half remaining in the first half, West Virginia rebounded a Georgetown miss and set up their offense. Jabarie Hinds missed a driving layup and a Georgetown rebound would have allowed them a chance to run out just about the entire clock on the first half, but the ball was tipped outside to another Mountaineer, who passed to Kevin Jones who subsequently missed a three-pointer. Yet another offensive rebound for the Mountaineers ended up in the hands of Darryl Bryant, who did not miss and gave West Virginia the 29-27 advantage they held going into the half. Georgetown's inability to grab the defensive rebound prevented them from having a chance to take a lead of their own into the half.

3) After a Henry Sims 15-footer tied the game at 33 four minutes into the second half, Darryl Bryant bricked a three-pointer from the corner. Again, the Hoyas didn't clean up the glass, and Deniz Kilicli flew into the point and dunked the ball back to salvage the possession. After Hollis Thompson turned the ball over on the next Georgetown possession, yet another Darryl Bryant miss was dunked home, this time by Keaton Miles. The Hoyas could not box out in the paint and this allowed West Virginia two very important offensive rebounds as well as momentum.

It Was Over When: Jason Clark missed a forced layup with 2 minutes to go. Darryl Bryant made two free throws on the other end to give the Mountaineers an 8-point edge with less than 2 minutes to go.

It's a short turnaround for the Hoyas, who have Cincinnati at home on Monday night. Hopefully we will see a better all-around performance from the Old Blue and Gray.