The View from Press Row: Hoyas Escape Charlotte

Shooting From the Hip

Well, that was fun wasn't it? Nothing like only having to use the edge of your seat in the final home non conference game of the season, right?

So in the preview I touched on a few things that were of concern going into the game. Let's take a quick look at how that worked out in real action after the Hoyas held on for the 81-78 W.

DSR - Another good overall game from D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera if you just look at the box score. The kid does it all but most of the Hoya faithful are still waiting for him to start shooting better. He went 4-of-11 from the field, including 1-of-4 from deep which helped him leap frog Victor Page on the all-time list.

It looked like there was a conscious effort to have other players bring the ball up the court but it still seemed as though most of DSR's shots came off the dribble instead of off a screen. Whatever happened to that big man handoff near the three point line?

Protecting the 3 - Things were going great for the first twenty minutes as Charlotte was just 2-of-10. This changed in the second half, especially late as the 49ers went 6-of-11, reminding some of Brannen Greene from a few weeks ago.

After a shot clock violation on one end, Georgetown again gave up an open 3-point look to Braxton Ogbueze from the baseline corner but it rimmed out. The same Ogbueze that had just made two straight 3-pointers.

After the game JT3 was annoyed by his team's inability to defend the three.

"Our goal was to not let them get threes and they got threes."

Free Throw Shooting - Besides offensive rebounding, this is probably one of biggest reasons that the Hoyas came out on top today. As a team Georgetown was 23-of-30 from the line, including an nearly perfect 14-of-15 from the line.

While Aaron Bowen gets the gold star for going 4-of-4 including those two bigs ones with the Hoyas clinging to a one point lead with 25 seconds left, Jabril Trawick also was an unexpected hero from the stripe.

Bowen entered the game shooting just 5-of-13 (38.5 percent) and Trawick wasn't much better at 6-of-15 (40 percent). Combined they went 8-of-9 from the stripe, only to be outdone by L.J. Peak's 7-of-7.

On the naughty list were Mikael Hopkins and Paul White, both of which went 0-of-2.