PIRATES LOOT: Seton Hall Shuts Down Hoyas, 66-51

Your Georgetown Hoyas (5-13, 0-7) dropped another game to a BIG EAST foe (27th consecutive) when they lost to the Seton Hall Pirates (10-8, 3-4) on Tuesday night. Losing 66-51, the Hoyas were tied at intermission (27-27) before the Shaheen Holloway’s Hall defense stepped up and a SHU veteran guard got hot shooting. Patrick Ewing’s Hoyas failed to adjust in the latter half, again.

Overall, the Hoyas shot a paltry 20-64 (31%) for field goals and 4-24 (17%) from three. The Pirates weren’t much better, shooting 24-63 (38%) from the floor and 9-24 (37.5%) from deep. Al-Amir Dawes went off for 24 points. No one from Georgetown scored in double digits with Spears, Akok, and Riley each getting 9 points. Denver Anglin made two of nine three point attempts for 6 points.

The 8:30 PM tip-off was pushed more towards 8:45. Georgetown started Primo Spears, Akok Akok, Qudus Wahab, Jordan Riley, and Bryson Mozone. SHU started Kadary Richmond, Al-Amir Dawes, Femi Odukale, Tyrese Samuel, and KC Ndefo.

The first half finished tied at 27. It was ugly, but the “competed in the first half” narrative continues.

In the first period, Georgetown shot 10-34 (29%) from the field and 2-16 (13%) from beyond the arc. Seton Hall shot 11-32 (34%) from the floor and 4-10 (40%) from three. For GU, Spears (7 points) led the scoring with Akok adding 5 points and Mozone with 4 points in his comeback start. Denver Anglin was 1-6 from three in 9 minutes, while Wayne Bristol Jr. and Bradley Ezewiro also got minutes off the bench. Samuel led SHU with 8 points on 4-8 shooting, with Richmond scoring 4 points on 1-6 from the field (1-1 3FG). Seton Hall’s Jamir Harris was 2-3 from three in 9 minutes of reserve time. The teams were tied with 23 rebounds and 4 assists apiece. Georgetown had fewer turnovers (4) than Seton Hall (5).

The second half started out 13-7 in favor of the Pirates, with Dawes hitting three three pointers before the under-16 media timeout. Dawes hit a fourth in a row and made two layups before Ewing called timeout with 12:52 left, SHU led 47-38. Hoyas had three turnovers and a couple bad shots leading to run-outs.

Wahab made a layup in a nice low-post move out of the timeout, but there was no scoring for nearly two minutes until Spears was fouled by Dawes on a drive and made both free throws to bring it to within 6 points with 10:40 left. Georgetown had a bit better defense as SHU attempted to get in the paint but several more miscues on offense. Tray Jackson made a second-chance three-point play but turned it over on the next play. Spears stole it, passed to Bristol who dished to Akok for the dunk. 50-44 with 9:38 left.

Next possession, Jackson got an easy dunk off a rebound that fell in his lap, Riley missed a jump shot from the elbow, and Dre Davis was fouled after an offensive rebound, making both from the charity stripe. Georgetown might have had a chance at this point still.

Hoyas struggled against the pressure without Spears in but a Riley made a jumper to beat the shot clock and Dawes missed a three but Harris made a good look after a ball-swing for a second-chance three to give the Pirates an 11-point lead under 7 minutes, 57-46. Ezewiro had a block before the media timeout at 5:57 but the game felt finished.

Coming out of the break, Spears turned over the inbounds pass and Jackson got a fast break dunk. Anglin hit another three, off a good screen, to keep the deficit at 10 with 5:32 left. Then Anglin drew a rare GU charge on the other end. There was hope the Hoyas could make things interesting. But Mozone missed a jump shot and then Jackson missed a three, but Harris got the open-floor rebound and Femi Odukale maneuvered with a shimmy to get a dunk to go up 12 with 4:20 left.

Anglin then missed a three with a hand in his face, Wahab got the rebound, and Spears got snuffed on a turnaround jump shot. SHU missed a shot and Akok missed on the other end. The Hoyas were dribbling the air out of the ball, again. GU was down 61-49 with only 3:11 left and a media timeout.

Riley made Georgetown’s last points with a layup with two minutes left to make the deficit 10 and the Hoyas barely even fouled. Seton Hall didn’t have a field goal in the last four minutes and Georgetown only made one of their last nine field goals.

Georgetown ended up losing the second half 39-24. In the half, the Hoyas shot 10-30 (33%) for field goals and 2-8 (25%) from three. The Pirates, during the second period, shot 13-31 (42%) from the floor and 5-14 (36%) from deep. The Hoyas had 8 turnovers and the Pirates only had three, in the half. SHU finished the latter half with 12 second-chance points (GU had 4) and 14 bench points (Hoyas had 3 second-half bench points).

Dawes was the leading scorer with 24 points (8-16 FG, 5-9 3PT) with Kadari Richmond shooting only 1-10 but having 6 assists. The Hoyas had only 8 total assists with Spears, Mozone, and Bristol all having two apiece.

Taking a narrow view of yet another second-half collapse, Georgetown again failed to step up to an opponent’s defensive challenge out of the intermission. While 12 turnovers is hardly a deal-breaker, shooting 31% from the field and 4-24 from three required a lot of transition defense.

Patrick Ewing was clearly missing scoring with Brandon Murray and Jay Heath still out. 51 points isn’t going to win a BIG EAST game. Akok and Mozone each shooting 1-5 from three, with Bristol 0-3 and Anglin 2-9, is not a terrific recipe for offensive success. There was not enough paint touches. Wahab had only five attempts in 24 minutes (10 rebounds, 6 points).

Patrick Ewing and the Hoyas have a few days of rest until their matchup Monday (MLK Day) on Villanova’s campus at noon on Fox.