[Rosiak's Blog] Previewing Georgetown

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Previewing Georgetown

Written by: Todd Rosiak


MU's last meeting with Georgetown is undoubtedly one every Golden Eagles fan has tried to erase from the memory bank.

Last Feb. 10 MU had a 53-52 lead with 7 minutes 29 seconds remaining at the Verizon Center, and then completely lost control of the proceedings.

Before it was all said and done, the Golden Eagles managed just one basket and four free throws the rest of the way en route to a 76-58 loss -- their first in nine games at that point.

There were some extenuating circumstances; Wesley Matthews was battling the flu and Jerel McNeal foul trouble. Even still, MU's inability to deal with either forward Jeff Green (24 points) or 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert (23 points and 11 rebounds) proved costly in the end.

Green has since moved on but Hibbert's back, and the leading scorer, shot-blocker and rebounder on an 11th-ranked Hoyas team that is tied for the lead in the Big East standings with Louisville heading into the final week of the regular season.

Nevertheless, the Golden Eagles will come into this afternoon's matchup having not seen any film of last season's debacle.

"We're not even going to show it to those guys," said coach Tom Crean on Friday. "Obviously we were playing without Wes, Jerel wasn't the same because of foul trouble, Dominic was not having a very good game at all. But you know what? We had a one-point lead. We didn't take good shots, we gave up offensive rebounds and we gambled offensively.

"Our whole focus all year has been to eliminate a lot of those things, and certainly this week it's been to get better at those things inside of this game. We spent a lot of time yesterday looking at every defensive clip from the Villanova tape so that we could really see where we were good, where we weren't so good, where we've got to take middle drive away or help better. I think that's much better for us right now than to go back.

"I'm different in that because in the past I used to show a lot of the past year, but now I really don't."

A little while later, Crean made one addendum about showing old film after being asked about matching up with Hibbert.

"Well, the one thing if we're going to go back and look at where we made mistakes, we'll go back to the UConn film where we challenged Hasheem Thabeet far too much," he said. "When you try to challenge the shot-blockers - we haven't had Jim McIlvaine in practice for the last couple years - we can't do that. We can't go in there and think we can challenge Roy Hibbert on drives, and we're going to go in and attack the lane.

"What we've got to do is get the ball in the middle and get it out of there."

As far as defending the Hoyas, Crean said the key is to not take too many chances.

"We can't gamble. If we get out and are so aggressive and start gambling and making mistakes, they'll make you pay," he said. "They have great poise and they understand as well as anybody how to read a defense, and that's what they're built on. We have to be good there. But with that being said we don't want to stop being aggressive. We don't want to look at the numbers and see we have 20 deflections in that game; that's not the way we play.

"They've had games where they've really gone out and attacked. They attacked Villanova's pressure a lot differently than they attacked Cincinnati's pressure. They went at Cincinnati. But we just have to read it."

Georgetown itself is once again one of the top defensive squads around. It leads the Big East in scoring defense, allowing opponents to shoot only 36.3% -- also tops in the nation through Feb. 24 -- and also scoring defense, holding teams to an average of 57.1 points per game. That ranked the Hoyas fourth in the nation.

Led by Hibbert's 60.4% shooting, the Hoyas also are first in field-goal percentage themselves in the Big East, hitting 48.3% of their shots. Along with Hibbert, senior guard Jonathan Wallace and junior guard Jessie Sapp have started all 27 games for Georgetown (23-4, 13-3), while sophomore forward DaJuan Summers has started 26 in place of Green, who is now playing in the NBA.

"We felt Wallace has been a dagger in so many peoples' sides for a long time," Crean said. "He was one of the first guys on my all-Big East ballot. I think he's excellent. He makes big plays. He's a senior; he makes the right pass, he takes the right shot. He's a big reason they play with such great poise and persistence. When you look at the close games they've won, that's what a lot of it comes down to. They've just persisted and stayed after it a little longer.

"DaJuan Summers is coming off a great game. You're dealing with McDonald's All-Americans in there. I mean, Wallace and Hibbert weren't, but some of those other guys were. They're really good. It's not a situation where you can put all your emphasis on one part of the game; you've got to have your team in a ‘never really relaxed' mode. They've got to be alert to everything, and hopefully us being able to get to our bench will help give our starters enough rest so that they can play high-quality minutes at the end of the game.

Aside from the obvious height advantage Hibbert holds, the Hoyas also have a number of other long, athletic players like the 6-8 Summers, 6-8 Patrick Ewing Jr. and 6-9 Vernon Macklin who over the past few seasons have caused the smallish Golden Eagles fits.

"We've been combating it all year with our guard play," said James. "Go down there and compensate for the length and the height that we don't have by digging and trying to get the ball out of the post and back in the perimeter, where our strong suit is. That's our main focus -- eliminating (Hibbert's) touches and trying to get the ball out of his hands as much as possible."

Added McNeal: "They're a very difficult team to beat if you can't match up with them size-wise, athleticism-wise. But we're the type of team that knows for us to win games, we're going to have to make people play the way that we want to play. If we're not doing that there's a lot of teams that we're not going to beat. But as long as we're speeding teams up and playing to our strengths, I think we're a pretty good team."

From the Georgetown point of view, coach John Thompson III was asked on Thursday on the Big East coaches' teleconference how he viewed his team's matchup with perimeter-oriented MU.

"Obviously they put pressure on you," he said. "Their perimeter players are terrific, and they put a lot of heat on you at the defensive end as well at as the offensive end with their ability to get to the basket. So that's part of the chess game, so to speak, going back and forth between our size and the perimeter play, and we'll see what happens.



http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2008/02/29/previewing-georgetown.aspx