Teams

Georgetown:
It wasn’t the prettiest of games for Georgetown, but like Coach Thompson said, “A road win in this league is good. There’s no two ways about it.” The Hoyas played well enough to beat an overmatched Rutgers team. The Hoyas need to work on their rebounding, since other Big East opponents won’t be as forgiving with second chance opportunities as Rutgers was, but Georgetown made up for it by making nearly half of their 23 three point attempts.

Rutgers:
After a 23 point loss at South Florida, the team suffered its second defeat in four days. The Scarlet Knights hung around for about a half, but in the end they didn’t have the fire power on the offensive end or the defensive pressure on the defensive end to stay in this one. The game seemed more out of reach than the final score may indicate.

Players

Georgetown:
Austin Freeman continues to impress, but Jonathan Wallace was the key for me in this game. He was perfect from the field and made the critical three pointer as time expired in the first half to push the Georgetown lead up to seven and dishearten the opposition.

Rutgers:
Hamady N’Diaye: not so much for his scoring or his defensive pressure on Roy, but for his rebounding. He secured four offensive rebounds, as many as the entire Georgetown team. It also helps, though, when your team misses 42 shots.

Coaches

Fred Hill made some interesting decisions throughout the game. In the first half, he tried to slow the pace down after the Hoyas took a small lead. He probably should have known that the more possessions Georgetown got, the less likely his team could keep up. Then, as the half was expiring, he told his players to foul since the Scarlet Knights had five fouls to give, perhaps in an attempt to prevent the Hoyas from getting a shot off. That plan backfired as it gave Mike Coburn his second foul, and Wallace still buried a three to end the half.

As for Coach Thompson, nothing sticks out to me, except perhaps his decision to leave Macklin in during the Hack-a-Mack portion of the second half. The Hoyas still had a sizable lead, and it showed confidence in the player. I won’t say it made him make the shots, but when one is struggling from the line, a lot of it is mental, so the coach leaving Macklin in might have helped him get his mind straight. We will see how he fairs from the stripe in the upcoming games.

Referees

The referees called very little in the first half, which is why Rutgers had five fouls to give with under a minute left in the half. It hurt the Hoyas a bit, as Roy’s moves to the basket were hindered a bit. The second half was called more closely, but by that point the game was already out of reach.

Fans

The RAC is known to be one of the most intimidating places to play in the Big East, but thanks to Winter Break and Rutger’s football team’s bowl game, the atmosphere was slightly pro-Georgetown. Perhaps that will help neutralize the effect that back-to-back road games might have, as the Hoyas now travel to DePaul.

Number of the Game

22: Number of offensive rebounds collected by Rutgers. Coincidentally, that’s also the number of defensive rebounds the Hoyas grabbed. What does that mean? That means whenever Rutgers missed a shot (which happened quite frequently), it was a 50-50 guess as to who was gonna get the ball. That’s definitely something the Hoyas have got to work on as the season continues.

Conference Openers

Coach Thompson is now 4-0 in Big East conference openers. However, he is only 1-2 in the second game. Hopefully he can improve his record to .500 with a win this Tuesday.