In its biggest game this season, Georgetown blew an 18-point lead, failed to dictate the pace, committed 27 fouls, and let its opponent shoot 56 percent from the field, and still pulled out an absolute thriller in beating #9/#8 Missouri 111-102 in overtime in Kansas City Tuesday night. The Hoyas overcame their numerous deficiencies thanks to streaky shooting, leadership from their three big guards, and more than a bit of luck. After giving away a huge lead and then some, the Hoyas came from behind in the waning minutes, fighting a uniformly pro-Missouri and ferocious crowd and pouncing on missed Tiger free throws to tie the game on Chris Wright’s three-pointer with less than a second remaining in regulation. In overtime, Jason Clark put the game away, pouring in three three-pointers on four possessions to silence the Missouri faithful and to keep the Hoyas undefeated.

There was too much to recap from just one game, but here are some additional thoughts:

• Player of the Game

  Austin Freeman racked up an astouding 31 points on just 17 shots, his second-straight 30-point effort. Freeman helped build the double-digit first-half advantage and, late in the second half, scored five straight to erase Mizzou’s largest lead of the night. He’s now averaging nearly 22 points per game, and is on a tear from behind the arc, making 13 threes in his last two games.

  Runners Up. Wright and Clark were both heroes as well. Wright tallied 21 points to go with 10 assists, and Clark totaled 26 points and 6 rebounds. But their stat lines don’t tell the full story: Wright made overtime possible by hitting a clutch 3 on a broken play, while Clark won the game in the extra period. While each of the three made errors throughout the game–Freeman inexplicably caused a shot-clock violation, Wright made more than one of his patented ill-advised forays to the basket, and Clark was occasionally sloppy with the ball and nearly committed what appeared to be a purposeful foul as time expired in regulation–those flaws make these three’s overall brilliance all the more impressive, serving as reminders that Missouri forced a fast pace that could just as easily have led to disaster as victory.

• Role Player of the Game.

  Henry Sims played possibly his best game in the blue and gray, finishing with 10 points and 7 rebounds in 33 minutes. Sims was conscripted into heavy minutes because Julian Vaughn was saddled with foul trouble. Big Hank performed admirably, hitting the boards with heretofore uncharacteristic aggression, and finding the open spot on the floor for several finishes. Sims is still a work in progress–he stands around on offense far too often, seeming to wait for a play to result in him being open–but progress is more than many Hoya fans dared to hope coming into the season. His 4.3 points and 4.4 rebounds to date are more than a pleasant surprise — they’re a revelation.

  Runner Up. Vee Sanford, who chipped in a timely 8 points in just 3 minutes. With a crowded backcourt, Sanford has not been getting as much run as expected, and his body langauge on the bench occasionally shows as much. But he’s been a scoring force when given minutes, no mean feat given such limited action.

• Stat of the Game.

  18-for-18. The Hoyas came into the game shooting just 65% from the line, a baffling statistic given their ability to find and hit open shots from the field. Tuesday night, they converted all 18 free throws, each of which was necessary in such a tight contest. Mizzou, by contrast, hit just 23 of 31 from the stripe, missing 3 key free throws in the last minute of regulation to give Georgetown the window of opportunity it needed.

  Runner Up. Georgetown’s +8 rebounding margin. The big question coming into this year was how Georgetown was going to staff its front-court, given the alternately undersized and unproven options aside from Julian Vaughn. One worry is that a deficient Hoya front-court would prove even weaker on the boards than in previous seasons, in which the Hoyas sometimes struggled to grab rebounds. But size problems seem to have sharpened the Hoyas’ focus on the boards: six Georgetown players grabbed at least three rebounds, and Freeman and Clark, both guards, joined Sims in hauling in at least 5.

• Crucial Sequence.

  There were too many high-pressure sequences to recount here, but Wright’s three stood out. After Michael Dixon missed the second of two three throws, the Hoyas recovered the rebound, trailing by three with fifteen seconds remaining and no time outs. Hollis Thompson (5 points, 4 rebounds in a foul-plagued 21 minutes) took an ill-advised running three-pointer which caromed off the back rim. The ball went loose, then nearly out of bounds, when a Mizzou player dove and saved the ball (a fundamental mistake–never save the ball under your own basket). Clark slid under the basket to recover the ball then spotted Wright open on the right wing. Wright got himself set for the last-second three (shades of his unbelievable shot-clock-beater against ODU) then drained the three as the clock showed .3 remaining. The Hoya faithful nationwide erupted, not least at Gamekeepers in Chicago, where the mood over two hours shifted from jovial (up 18) to deathly serious (down 5) to, finally, jubilant (overtime!).

  Runner Up. Clark’s run in overtime was amazing. He entered the extra period having hit just one of six from deep, but converted three straight shots in overtime to break open a tie game and, along with timely stops on the defensive end of the floor, put the Hoyas up seven. As the Hoyas had been all night long, Clark came off of ball screens to find himself wide open from behind the stripe. Screened Missouri defenders were moving under the screens, and no Tiger defender, whether by showing or by coming over the screen, ran the Hoya shooters off their spots. Clark capitalized on this opportunity.

  Second Runner Up. The Hoyas shot an astouding 20-for-28 from the field in the first half, amassing a 34-17 lead on the back of a 25-8 run.

  Cynical Runner Up. Austin Freeman hit a three-pointer in the first half that he released after the shot clock had expired. Nearly every Mizzou player, fan, and coach, most vehemently Mike Anderson, protested, but the referees counted it good. Predicting what might have happened the rest of the game had Freeman’s three not counted is a bit of a butterly-effect exercise, but every point helped.

• Conclusion.

  Each team sought to make a statement Tuesday night by notching a victory over their toughest opponent in their respective non-conference slates, staking their claims to national prominence and, perhaps, tournament success in March. Beforehand, the game seemed like it would be a test of wills: Georgetown attempting to methodically execute its offensive plan and force the Tigers into bad shots; Mizzou pushing the pace, forcing turnovers, and thriving on chaos. Neither team entirely succeeded. The game was played entirely at Mizzou’s pace, and the Hoyas did little to deny the Tigers open looks. But Georgetown’s 17 turnovers, while a bit high, were not as unsightly as might have been expected in light of their 23 give-aways against UNC-Asheville on Saturday. If anything, the Hoyas benefitted from the frenetic tempo, draining open shots all night. No shot was bigger than Wright’s three, which he hit with poise and grace, and which immediately took its place in the canon of clutch Hoya shots, perhaps still a step behind Jeff Green’s game-winner in the Sweet Sixteen against Vanderbilt in 2007, and Jonathan Wallace’s three to force overtime against North Carolina two days later. While that squad made it as far as any Georgetown team in the past 25 years, this year’s edition has won just seven games, and has four months of basketball left to play. Even so, while the calendar still said November last night, on the court, and in the occasionally arrested hearts of Hoya fans, it was already March.