Teams

Georgetown:
A rather unimpressive win for Georgetown. With the bottom team in the conference coming to Verizon Center, perhaps the Hoyas failed to take their opponent seriously. They started sloppily, and only after halftime did the Hoyas finally start to put South Florida away. Also, for the second straight game, Georgetown took a sizeable lead midway through the second half, only to falter and let their opponents back into the game, this time going four minutes without a field goal. The Hoyas need to play hard for the full forty minutes if they hope to be successful against Louisville this Saturday.

South Florida:
The Bulls fought hard and came out hot, hitting 10 of their first 13 shots, which translates to an incredible 77% from the field. But, they didn’t have the fire power to sustain such shooting, and the Bulls eventually dropped their ninth straight. With a 1-9 conference record, South Florida seems almost assured of missing out on another Big East Tournament.

Players

Georgetown:
DaJuan Summers started the game with a missed three pointer. He then scored on his next four attempts to help the Hoyas battle back from an early 10 point deficit. He ended the game with a career-high 24 points, but more impressive than his scoring was his poise. The Hoyas had come out flat, and he lifted the team with his shooting. It’s easy to pass instead of shoot when the team is struggling, but Summers put the Hoyas on his shoulders and carried them until his teammates found their range.

South Florida:
Senior center Kentrell Gransberry proved himself to be a formidible opponent to Roy Hibbert, starting the game with a block on his 7-2 counterpart. Gransberry would end with 13 points, nine rebounds, and five blocks, showing his strength inside. However, with limited outside help, he was unable to lead his team to victory, which must be a familiar feeling.

Coaches

The only time when coaching came into question was in the dying moments of the game. Roy Hibbert had just made a basket to put the Hoyas up nine with a little over 1:30 to play. South Florida Coach Stan Heath failed to have an effective play worked out, and as a result, the Bulls ran almost 30 seconds off the clock before settling for a tough jumper from Gransberry, which is not his strong suit. I am not convinced that this play would have changed the outcome, but if the Bulls had somehow managed to get a quick two or three on that possession, it would have made the last minute much more interesting, especially given the Hoyas shot only 52% on the night from the stripe.

Referees

The refs let them play in this one, which is one the reasons there were 11 blocks between the starting centers. I am sure in the Seton Hall game a few of those would have been called fouls. On the whole though, the referees were fine, as no glaring mistakes stick out.

Fans

A relatively modest crowd for this game, perhaps in part to Fat Tuesday, Super Tuesday, or the later start time. The student section in particular seemed much smaller and tamer. And while the lackluster performance by the Boys in Gray didn’t give the fans much to cheer about, I thought the people in attendence did try to lift the team after their sluggish start.

Number of the Game

11: Consecutive Georgetown points scored by DaJuan Summers to start the game, until a jumper by Jeremiah Rivers dropped to get a second Hoya on the scoreboard. Summers kept the team in the game at the start, as over the first five and a half minutes, all the other Hoyas were a combined 0-10 from the field.

Turn Back The Clock

As has become a pattern at Verizon Center this year, the clock once again failed to stop moving after a whistle. In this game, there was about a 20 second runoff after a stoppage. The referees eventually noticed the mistake when the shot clock was at 28 seconds, and reset it along with the game clock. However, they failed to realize the shot clock didn’t restart until 11 seconds after the game clock, so adding eight seconds back was not enough. As a result, the teams were gypped out of 11 seconds of basketball. I don’t think anyone’s gonna complain about it for this game.