Last night's game between top-ranked Illinois and a young Georgetown men's basketball team appeared to be a mismatch, a point that was illustrated at the very start when Jonathan Wallace, a freshman walk-on for the Hoyas, matched up against Dee Brown, a preseason all-American candidate for the Illini.
The final score -- a 74-59 victory for Illinois -- seemed to bear that out. But outside of a 10-minute stretch that encompassed the end of the first half and the start of the second, the Hoyas stayed right with one of the best teams in the country.
James Augustine lets go a hook shot over Georgetown's Jeff Green, who had a game-high 20 points to go with six rebounds and three blocks.
(John Mcdonnell -- The Washington Post)
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Georgetown freshman Jeff Green led all scorers with 20 points, and also had six rebounds and three blocked shots. Wallace, whom the Hoyas' first-year coach, John Thompson III, recruited while he was still the coach at Princeton, added 10 points and two steals, and committed just two turnovers.
A lively crowd of 12,401 -- about a third of which appeared to be wearing orange -- filled the lower bowl of MCI Center, marking Georgetown's first sellout since last season's game with top-ranked Duke. (The upper deck of the 20,600-seat arena will not be open for any Georgetown game this season.) They were there to watch a rarity: an early-season game between Georgetown and a ranked opponent.
The Hoyas (3-2) have taken a lot of criticism for playing a soft pre-Big East schedule in the past; last night's game against the Illini marked only the ninth time in the past 10 years that the Hoyas played a ranked team in either November or December, according to the Georgetown Basketball History Project Web site.
"Going through a game like this will help us in Big East play," Georgetown junior Brandon Bowman said.
The Illini (8-0), who returned all five starters from the team that won the Big Ten championship, apply a lot of pressure on defense and share the ball on offense (20 assists on 28 field goals). Their two standout junior guards, Brown and Deron Williams, combined for 15 points and 11 assists. Forward Roger Powell Jr. scored 19 points and forward James Augustine added 15 as the Illini outscored Georgetown in the paint by a 42-24 margin.
The Hoyas shot 44.4 percent for the game, and they made a season-low six three-point shots. Bowman, who entered the game averaging 19.8 points on 56 percent shooting, was 2 of 8 from the field for seven points.
"We need to get more game experience," Thompson said. "They are a terrific team, and they do put pressure on you. . . . We had stretches where we did not execute."
Georgetown was clearly overwhelmed last season in two games against top-ranked teams, Connecticut and Duke; in both of those games, the Hoyas fell behind early and big. Against Illinois, it was imperative for Georgetown to stay close in the first half; in the Illini's seven previous wins, they led by an average of 19 points at halftime.
Not only did the Hoyas keep the game close in the first half, they led for a total of 11 minutes 20 seconds. That seemed to be a small victory for Georgetown, as Illinois came into the game having trailed on the scoreboard for only 10:12 in the entire season, but the Hoyas didn't see it that way.
"We don't want any moral victories," Bowman said. "The game is 40 minutes. They won by [15] points. It doesn't matter how you start, it's how you finish. What we did in the first half was irrelevant."
A dunk from Bowman -- who made a backdoor cut and collected a bounce pass from Darrel Owens -- gave Georgetown its first lead, 4-3, 2:40 into the game. The Hoyas made 10 of their first 16 shots, while Illinois missed 15 of their first 22, and Georgetown led, 22-17, with 6:35 left in the first half.
But Illinois went on a 14-2 run to close the half, and held a 31-24 advantage at the break. Georgetown committed five turnovers in that stretch.
"We knew that was one thing that if we kept putting pressure on them, both in the transition and picking them up, that they would tire," Illinois Coach Bruce Weber said. "I think their guards tired."
