New Year, Same Hoyas: Georgetown Loses to Marquette, 64-60
Georgetown coughs up a 16-point halftime lead, and falls to 3-6 on the season, and 1-4 in Big East play.
Georgetown did not get off to a promising start in the new year on Saturday night. The home team turned the ball over on its first four possessions against Marquette, and five of its first six possessions.
“Bad shots, bad decisions, turnovers,” lamented Patrick Ewing after Georgetown’s 64-60 home loss against Marquette on Saturday night.
Marquette didn’t do much to take advantage of Georgetown’s early miscues, however, as the Golden Eagles led just 7-2 at the first media timeout.
After the first media timeout, the Hoyas woke up from their slumber and began to take control in the first half. Jahvon Blair, who was surprisingly removed from the starting lineup tonight by Ewing, gave the Hoyas a 12-9 lead seven minutes into the game on a midrange jumper.
Behind a strong rebounding performance in the first half, and 12 first-half points by Blair, who had 20 for the game, Georgetown carried a 36-20 lead into halftime, helped by Marquette shooting 25.8% from the field in the first half.
After turning the ball over a ton in the first four minutes, the Hoyas committed just two turnovers in the remaining 16 minutes in the first half.
But then, predictably, the wheels came off in the second half, once again.
Georgetown saw its lead pushed to 18 early in the second half, but then the Golden Eagles found their footing, and began a slow and incremental comeback, led by Jamal Cain, who had 20 points in the second half alone.
After Cain completed a loud alley-oop to cut it to an 11 point game, things got tenuous for the Hoyas, who struggled to put the ball through the hoop in the second half.
With 10:53 left in the game, and Georgetown up by 15, Patrick Ewing ran out a lineup of Jahvon Blair-T.J. Berger-Jamari Sibley-Chudier Bile-Timothy Ighoefe. It was a questionable decision in the moment, as soon as the group went out on the floor, and it wound up being the lineup that keyed the big Marquette run that wound up winning them the game.
The visitors would cut the lead to 10 in the 2:52 that that lineup was on the floor for, and the bleeding did not stop after that. In the final 10:53 of the game, Marquette went on a 27-8 run, fueled by Georgetown turnovers, missed shots, lazy effort on the boards.
“We did a great job in the first half of playing great defense, and then plays in the second half, we got selfish and started turning it over,” said Ewing.
Marquette kept chipping away, with little resistance by the Hoyas to stop the bleeding. Georgetown led by one point after a Justin Lewis layup, and then Ewing made another poor coaching decision, pulling Blair, who was the team’s best player in this game, for freshman guard T.J. Berger, who was scoreless in this game, with 3:50 remaining.
A personal foul by Jamorko Pickett put Marquette in the bonus with 3:19 to go, and Marquette forward Dawson Garcia hit both free throws to put Marquette up 1, 57-56, with 3:19 left.
Ewing then decided to take out Pickett with 2:45 left, and replace him with Chudier Bile, who, despite Pickett’s poor performance on offense, is a worse player than Pickett, especially on defense, where Pickett’s value is greatest.
Marquette would go on to take the lead back once more, for good, after a short jumper from D.J. Carton put Marquette up 61-60.
Carton, who finished with just seven points on 3-of-11 shooting, suffered cramps in the second half, but came back in the game late to give his team the boost it needed to complete the comeback.
“Our guys showed incredible fight and sticktoitiveness against a good Georgetown team that played really well,” said Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski after the game.
Jamal Cain put the final nail in the coffin, hitting a corner three with 15 seconds remaining to put Marquette up for good, 64-60.
Cain finished with 25 points and six rebounds, making up for quiet games from Carton and Garcia (9 points and 13 rebounds).
The Golden Eagles shot 51.5% in the second half, and only made seven of their 12 free throw attempts. But Georgetown was worse, shooting 30% from the field in the second half, 15.4% from three, and attempting just five three throws in the second half.
Combine that with questionable lineup decisions by Patrick Ewing, and the usual turnover issue (10 turnovers in the second half, 17 total), and Georgetown once again choked in the second half after being up double digits at halftime.
“Everyone has to take it upon themselves to make the right decision,” said Ewing when asked about his team’s continued issues with turning the ball over. “We talk about it, we watch film. I don’t even know if we can drill not turning the ball over. We just got to make better decisions, especially at the end of the game.”
Now 1-4 in Big East play, and 3-6 on the season, Georgetown will hope that it can get back on track on Wednesday night on the road against the Butler Bulldogs. To do that, the team will need better performances from its vets. Jamorko Pickett (4 points on 2-of-7 shooting) and Don Carey (5 points on 2-of-9 shooting) did little to help the Hoyas stop the Marquette comeback in the second half, although Pickett deserves credit for his work in limiting Garcia on defense.
Freshman point guard Dante Harris also continues to have issues with turning the ball over, despite showing flashes here and there. Harris had 5 turnovers on Saturday night, and was 3-of-9 from the field. On the other hand, five assists and seven rebounds is a promising sign for the young guard.
Georgetown fans knew this was going to be a difficult season. But the team’s insistence on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory continues to be a common trend among Patrick Ewing’s teams, and losing games to Villanova, and now Marquette, in which the Hoyas were up by double digits at halftime, at home, is unacceptable, no matter how bad your team is.
The Blair-Berger-Sibley-Bile-Ighoefe lineup, pulling Blair for Berger with 3:50 to go, and pulling Pickett for Bile with 2:45 left were all lineup decisions that came back to bite Georgetown. While the player deserve plenty of blame for their lack of execution, the buck stops with Ewing, and tonight involved miscues by players and coach alike.
How the team respond against Butler on Wednesday night will be telling.