There are different kinds of losses, but whether you get blown out, lose at the buzzer, are cheated by the refs, or lay an egg, the important thing is that the loss doesn’t start a trend. The Memphis second half was a bit of a nightmare for the Hoyas, but the loss won’t matter much in the end if the Hoyas can make sure the reasons they were defeated by the Tigers don’t reoccur often. The question remains – what went wrong for the Hoyas against Memphis? The answer is, quite a bit.

The defense for the Hoyas was good. Memphis is a talented team with great players, but when the Hoyas defended together, they were effective. The Tigers made very few contested shots during the game; the problem was that most of the time that the Hoyas forced misses, Memphis scored on offensive rebounds. There is nothing that deflates a good defensive effort like second chance points, and throughout the game, Memphis was absolutely dominating the offensive rebounding. Part of the reason was the athleticism of the Memphis players, but a lot of it also had to do with poor defensive rebounding.

The Georgetown offense struggled mightily in the second half. Once again, Memphis was a large reason for the disruption, but the offense was not sharp and not run with precision, and that falls on the Hoyas. Roy Hibbert had a sub-par offensive performance with his scoring, but there are always options to pick up the slack on the scoreboard without Hibbert’s points. The bigger problem was that Roy wasn’t really involved; he wasn’t incorporated into the flow of the offense, and as a result the wheels sort of fell off when Georgetown was in the half court.

People will call Georgetown’s loss to Memphis a reality check, or a wake-up call, but it isn’t. The Hoyas had an off day, and a very energetic Memphis team took full advantage. The game probably meant a little bit more to the Tigers than to the Hoyas, and it showed. This game was the first time in a while where the Hoyas really did not show a lot of fight. But here’s the bottom line – the offense will be fine, the defense is better than the offense, and the rebounding is a big question mark. The Hoyas have no problem finding players to fill up the score sheet, but they might have a problem finding players to rebound. After the Memphis game, defensive rebounding needs to be priority number one for the Hoyas, especially for the small forwards and guards. A large part of rebounding on the defensive side of the ball is boxing out, which is more mental than physical. Defensive rebounding requires boxing out. Boxing out is not difficult, but it does require effort and most of all concentration. Those were two things that were noticeably lacking against Memphis, but the most important thing is that it doesn’t start a trend.