Teams

Georgetown:
It was a tough loss for Georgetown, but not entirely unexpected. The Hoyas were playing the #4 team in the country on the road against a side that desperately wanted a little payback for the meeting last season.

That said, it was a difficult loss because it seemed like the Hoyas did everything right. Greg had a powerful performance, two other players stepped up on offense, everyone knocked down their free throws in the second half, and they played tight defense when they needed to. Unfortunately, a few key plays did not go their way, and Villanova hit their foul shots at the end to keep Georgetown out of this one.

Villanova:
The Wildcats are a very good team. Coach Jay Wright said that he often uses the Georgetown game as a barometer for his team because they play such different styles. If Villanova can win a game against the half-court Hoyas, then they are a threat against most opponents.

Players

Georgetown:
Greg Monroe had a monster performance, achieving career highs in points and rebounds (tying the number of rebounds he grabbed against Harvard).

But more impressive than his numbers were his energy and his level of aggression. He was a force on defense, and he attacked the basket on offense. Nothing made that more clear than on the play in the first half when he grabbed a defensive rebound, dribbled down court, passed it to Austin, and got it back for a slam.

And as Georgetown was making its comeback, Greg found a section of Hoya fans to show the Wachovia Center that the Hoyas would not back down.

Villanova:
Scottie Reynolds did what he’s supposed to on that team. He made key shots, he drew fouls, and he knocked down his free throws in the clutch. One of the key plays of the game was when Reynolds grabbed an offensive rebound and called a timeout with two minutes reamaining.

Coaches

Near the end of the game, the Hoyas were fouling and playing offense-defense with Chris Wright and Jerrelle Benimon for Henry Sims and Vee Sanford. Vee committed a foul before Villanova inbounded the ball, which in general is a good thing because no time runs off the clock. However, that also means that the Hoyas couldn’t sub back in their offensive players until the clock started again. It looked like the refs were going to allow the substitutions if not for Jay Wright pointing it out.

On the other end, the only negative I can say about Coach Thompson on Sunday was that maybe he should have used a timeout when Hollis got the offensive rebound with less than two minutes to play. That’s an easy call with hindsight, but even at the time you could tell that Hollis was flustered with the Villanova pressure defense, and Georgetown still had two timeouts remaining.

Referees

The referees were not very good in this one. Their calls were not biased one way or the other, but in both halves, they called several quick fouls on Villanova in the first four minutes and then several on Georgetown over the next seven or eight minutes. In each half, both teams were shooting 1 and 1 for more than seven minutes of action. There was no way they could have kept up that pace of calling fouls, so the calls were inconsistent, which is never a good thing.

Back-to-Back Unbeatens

The Hoyas get another chance to hand an undefeated Big East team their first conference loss this Wednesday. Georgetown travels to the other side of Pennsylvania to play Pittsburgh. We knew coming in that it would be a tough road stretch for the Hoyas, and they need a win Wednesday to keep it from getting ugly.

Image via PrincetonBasketball.com