Back to Reality: Georgetown Suffers 68-67 Upset to Holy Cross

The Hoyas suffered their first defeat of the season, thanks in part to a career-high 33 points by Holy Cross senior guard Joe Octave.

Georgetown fans had a nice four-day honeymoon between their season-opening blowout victory against the Le Moyne Dolphins and Saturday night’s 8 PM matchup against Holy Cross.

After beating the Dolphins by 37 points, Hoya fans were feeling good heading into another home game against a Holy Cross team that only had one rotation player taller than 6-foot-6.

Unfortunately, reality came calling on Saturday, as Georgetown suffered its first setback under Ed Cooley, losing to Holy Cross by a final score of 68-67.

The main ingredients for Saturday night’s concoction of pain, misery, and disappointment? An 11-0 run midway through the second half for Holy Cross, along with a 41-31 rebounding edge for the visitors, topped off by a career-high 33 points by senior guard Joe Octave.

Georgetown led for 35:04 of the game, but its blend of inexperience and new faces on the roster made for a rough closing stretch on Saturday night, as the Hoyas were outscored 22-10 in the final 7:53 of the game.

An incensed Ed Cooley was not afraid to dish out criticism during his postgame press conference— aimed at both himself and his team.

“I don’t think we played smart down the stretch,” said Cooley. “A lot of that’s on me. In the finer points of the game down the stretch, I got to do a better job teaching our men how to better deal with that.”

“We played complacent, we played arrogant, and we didn’t play with a sense of purpose.”

Cooley later added, “Normally the DNA of our organization is about toughness, commitment to defense, about commitment to unselfishness, and those things went out the window today for whatever reason.”

The loss to the Crusaders makes Holy Cross (#331) the lowest-ranked team to ever beat Georgetown in the history of KenPom.com’s database.

Despite the poor effort on the boards and on defense, Georgetown did show a few positive signs that, if they can keep it up, will help this team bounce back over the course of the season.

The Hoyas only committed four turnovers for the entire game, and shot well from three-point range, going 11-29 (37.9%) from long-distance. But Ed Cooley wasn’t too impressed.

“To me, I’m not an analytics coach,” said Cooley. “You either do it, or you don’t. There are no analytics on will, want, passion, desire, and effort. There’s no analytic to that. You know what that’s called? Recruiting.”

The loss was a brutal reminder to Georgetown fans of just how far this team has to go to get back to basic relevancy. While the team deserves credit for handling business in the season opener against Le Moyne, it now needs to look itself in the mirror and honestly evaluate how it coughed up a game against one of the worst teams, statistically, in Division 1 college basketball this season.

But to blow one bad early-season loss out of proportion and declare the entire season to be down the drain is off the mark, and Hoya fans would do well to take the long view with this team.

The fact that “will and want”, as Cooley put, were at the forefront of the issues for Georgetown on Saturday can be viewed as a good thing, in that it’s a correctable issue that is entirely within the team’s control.

“I think rebounding, regardless of your size, regardless of your talent, rebounding is a will, a want, and an attitude,” said Cooley. “And right now, my team just doesn’t have it. Right now, my team is relying on the shirt name. They’re relying on Georgetown. They better rely on each other. Because we got our ass kicked.”

That’s a variable that can be adjusted quickly. Say, within the next few days before the Rutgers game.

For this team to have any sort of success once conference play begins, they are going to need to learn how to play with the same tireless work ethic that Holy Cross exhibited on Saturday night.

This team is not talented enough to skate by on skill alone. Hopefully an embarrassing loss to a lowly midmajor opponent will be enough to get them to realize that.

Certainly, Cooley took the loss to heart on Saturday night.

“Very, very disappointed with my team’s energy, attitude, and effort. And that starts with me.”

This painful loss at the hands of Holy Cross could prove to be a valuable lesson for this team down the road, when its Georgetown who are the underdogs going up against the more talented, physical, and bigger teams in the Big East.

The performances of Rowan Brumbaugh (17 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists on 6-11 shooting) and Jayden Epps (22 points, 3 assists on 7-19 shooting) also should not go unnoticed.

In a season where the development of this program’s young nucleus should take center stage, having those two already showing signs of finding their bearings in Ed Cooley’s system just two games in can only mean good things for the future.

It’s important to not miss the forest for the trees. Saturday night’s defeat stings a great deal, and brings back painful memories of the Ewing Era for many, but to compare this team to *gestures* that after an early loss by an inexperienced group isn’t fair.

This team deserves more time, and more importantly, our continued support.

“It’s about what we are building,” said Cooley. “The seeds that are in the ground, that tree is going to be built, and that fruit on that tree is going to be really, really sweet. It’s just sour right now.”

Now, the team has a few days to regroup and rebound before it travels to Piscataway, New Jersey to take on Rutgers in front of a likely sold-out RAC crowd, as part of this year’s iteration of the Gavitt Games.

How they respond after Saturday night will say a lot about this team’s will and want moving forward.

“Coaches lose games, players win games. And I did a shitty job coaching my group today. And I’ll do a better job come Wednesday night,” said Cooley.