Teams

Georgetown:
The Hoyas came out flat, showed little life in the middle, and ended worse. By far the worst performance of the season for Georgetown couldn’t have come at a worse time. Back-to-back losses just before a three game road trip with conference implications getting bigger and bigger. Georgetown struggled in every category from shooting to rebounding to keeping possession. Hopefully the Hoyas can use that short memory you have to develop in the Big East and forget about this game in a hurry.

West Virginia:
West Virginia came into this game with a plan, and they implemented it fairly well – keep the ball out of Greg Monroe’s hands. On a day when Georgetown couldn’t knock down a three to save their lives, keeping Monroe out of the game and showing extra energy on the boards made this game look easy for the Mountaineers.

Players

Georgetown:
Jessie Sapp has been in a rut lately. He hasn’t been making his shots, he’s been seeing more and more time on the bench, and it looks like his swagger is gone. Yesterday, though, I thought Jessie looked like the seasoned leader he’s supposed to be. He missed his first three, but made his next, and he was constantly struggling for loose balls and rebounds. For some reason, though, he still watched a ton of the game from the bench, and in a game where it looked like no one could manage to do anything right, I was surprised to see so little action for the senior. When he was out there, it looked to me like he was reading the game well, making extra passes and not forcing his shot.

West Virginia:
De’Sean Butler took apart the Hoyas’ defense in the first half, and he didn’t stop there. 11-18 from the field for the 6’7” junior to go with his 8 rebounds (2 offensive) showed how devastating he was at Verizon Center last night.

Coaches

Dressed in a tie and a warmup jacket, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins had his team prepared to win this game. He had a game plan and his team executed.

On the other end, Coach Thompson did not do a good job of adjusting in-game to help his team get out of their funk. Going into the break, I thought that this might be somewhat like the Providence game where the team looked dead for most of the half, but they found a spark near the end of the first half and had a lot more energy in the second. That didn’t happen last night. Thompson said that shots that normally go in weren’t falling and that those misses were damaging to the Hoyas on both ends of the court. The offensive frustration led to high-strung defense, and no one could break out of it. He didn’t think that anything was wrong with Georgetown’s shot selection since those shots normally go in. But to me, that seems a little strange because if shots aren’t falling, and you just keep shooting, you’re almost setting yourself up for failure. Yes, the shots will eventually go down, but if that doesn’t happen soon enough, you might dig yourself to deep, and I think that’s what happened. The problem was there was nothing to provide Georgetown with that necessary spark, so the entire game looked lifeless.

Referees

The refs were out of it last night. You could tell something was off when they called the laughable intentional foul on Jason Clark only six minutes in. From then on, the refs were just inconsistent and bizarre with the rest of their calls. Offensive fouls, hand checks, and travels were a plenty and it seemed like they were just trying to disrupt the flow of the game. The refs didn’t play a big role in the outcome and neither side benefited from the calls, but it was just weird.

Fans

While the Georgetown players’ performance was nothing to write home about, I felt that the crowd was a little lifeless too. Now, it’s hard to cheer on your team for 40 minutes without them giving you anything in return, but it’s always disappointing to me when the opposing team’s supporters are louder than Hoya fans in the Verizon Center.

Number of the Game

12.5: Georgetown’s three-point percentage. The Hoyas are tough to beat when they’re firing on all cylinders, but when they’re not, they don’t look to hot. Coach Thompson said after the game that yesterday’s performance was just “a blip” and if you think about it, the odds that 45% DaJuan Summers, 36% Wright, 35% Freeman, 30% Wattad, and 29% Clark each shoot under 15% from behind the arc are pretty slim. So hopefully Coach is right, and this is something we won’t see again.