NEW YORK, Feb. 20 -- The third week of February is the time when teams should be starting to play their best basketball of the season, not their worst. But the Georgetown men's basketball team was outplayed in nearly every way by a team that had lost 10 of its last 12 games, and the Hoyas fell to St. John's, 76-67, before 7,464 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon.
The loss, which dropped Georgetown's record to 16-8 overall and 8-5 in the Big East, could prove costly. The Hoyas had played themselves into position to earn their first NCAA tournament bid since 2001, but back-to-back losses to Notre Dame and St. John's (9-14, 3-10) have put them on unsteady ground.
Georgetown's Jeff Green, center, scores a team-high 20 points but it's not enough as the Hoyas lose to St. John's.
(Tina Fineberg - AP)
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| _____ Tournament Outlook _____
A look at the local Division I colleges and their chances of making the NCAA tournament.
_____ Maryland_____
• Record: 16-10
• RPI: 39
• AP Ranking: Not Ranked
• Key Wins: at Duke, vs. Georgia Tech, vs. Duke
• Key Losses: vs. GW, vs. North Carolina State, at Miami, vs. Clemson
• Prognosis: Given the respect of the ACC and their RPI of 39, the Terps are likely in by winning at least two more games.
_____ Georgetown_____
• Record: 16-9
• RPI: 70
• AP Ranking: Not Ranked
• Key Wins: at Pittsburgh, at Villanova, vs. Notre Dame
• Key Losses: vs. Oral Roberts, vs. Temple, at St. John's
• Key Remaining Games: at Connecticut (March 2)
• Prognosis: The Hoyas are in serious danger of missing the NCAA tournament unless they can beat Connecticut on the road and have a decent showing in the Big East tournament.
_____ George Washington_____
• Record: 18-7
• RPI: 78
• AP Ranking: Not Ranked
• Key Wins: vs. Maryland, vs. Michigan State
• Key Losses: vs. Massachusetts, vs. Xavier, at Richmond
• Prognosis: Losing to Saint Joseph's at home puts a major dent in the Colonials' tournament hopes. They have an outside shot of getting an at-large bid if they advance to the Atlantic 10 tournament final.
_____ Virginia Tech_____
• Record: 14-12
• RPI: 122
• AP Ranking: Not Ranked
• Key Wins: vs. North Carolina State, at Georgia Tech, vs. Duke, vs. Miami
• Key Losses: at VMI, at St. John's, vs. Western Michigan
• Key Remaining Games: vs. Maryland
• Prognosis: The loss to Clemson at the buzzer severely damages the Hokies' tournament dreams. They likely need to beat Maryland and advance deep into the ACC tournament to have a chance.
American, George Mason, Howard, Navy and Virginia all need to win their conference tournaments to make the tournament.
**RPI taken from http://kenpom.com/rpi.php
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The Hoyas have three regular season games left -- starting with a home game against No. 25 Villanova next Sunday, followed by a game at No. 18 Connecticut on March 2 and a home game against Providence on March 5 -- to try to reach the 10-win mark in the conference, which would give them a strong case for an at-large berth.
Georgetown Coach John Thompson III, as he has throughout the month, sidestepped questions about what the loss could mean for the postseason. Thompson has taken a pragmatic approach with his young team, and he acknowledged that Sunday's performance was a step back. "Without a doubt," he said.
"Regardless of what point of the year it is, our goal and focus is to improve and to be better next week than we are this week," said Thompson, whose team lost consecutive games for the first time this season. "This is not the time to start to stay the same and coast along. . . . For the most part, you can look at our team and say we've gotten better, we've gotten better [throughout the season]. Looking at our performance today, I can't say that we were better this week than we were last week."
The Red Storm outrebounded Georgetown 39-23, and it hardly mattered that its leading rebounder and strongest inside presence -- 6-foot-9 sophomore Lamont Hamilton -- was limited to just 15 minutes because of foul trouble. Phil Missere, a rangy 6-9 former walk-on, grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds; he had five on the offensive end, which equaled the total from Georgetown's top rebounder, junior forward Brandon Bowman (19 points, five rebounds).
The Hoyas had only nine first-half rebounds, but part of that was attributed to hot shooting from St. John's. The Red Storm moved the ball well, got good shots and made them (15 for 26, 57 percent). They used a 21-8 run to break the game open.
The Hoyas, meantime, were content to shoot from outside, rather than work the ball inside to freshman Jeff Green, who was dominant in the first meeting between the teams. Seven of their first 13 shots were from three-point range, and only one of them found the basket. Georgetown finished 4 for 21, a season-worst 19 percent.
"I thought we took too many outside shots," said Thompson, whose team has made just 25.3 percent of its three-pointers (19 for 75) in its past four games. "Early on, they were giving us open looks and we were taking the first outside shot that we got. . . . They were open, so you can't say hey, that might be a bad shot, but based on how the flow of the game was going, we had to get something different."
In the second half, that meant throwing the ball inside to Green. He scored 12 of his team-high 20 points in the second half.
St. John's led 45-29 at halftime, but the Hoyas, as they always do, made a run. A 10-0 spurt midway through the second half whittled the deficit from 18 to eight.
But in the end, it was the Red Storm which made the big plays at critical moments and Georgetown which made costly mistakes.
With 15 minutes left, the Hoyas had cut the St. John's lead to 12 and had a chance to shrink it further, but Ryan Williams leaped high to block Ashanti Cook's fast-break layup attempt. At the other end, Cook fouled Daryll Hill (20 points) as the sophomore sank a three-pointer. Hill made the free throw, and then Dexter Gray converted a traditional three-point play on the Red Storm's next possession. All of a sudden, St. John's had its biggest lead, 54-35, with 13:57 remaining.
The Hoyas drew within six points with less than three minutes to play, but Cook committed a costly intentional foul. St. John's wound up scoring four points on that possession.
"That intentional foul -- Ashanti said he tried to make a play for the ball," Thompson said. "At that point in the game, that was a key juncture."
Georgetown did not make its players available to the media after the game, but there wasn't much to say.
"They outplayed us today," Thompson said. "There's no other way to articulate it."
