GAME THREAD: Georgetown at Syracuse

Hoyas, Orange Meet for 100th Game!

Game 10: Georgetown Hoyas (7-2) at Syracuse Orange (5-4)

When: Saturday 2:30 PM

Where: JMA Wireless Dome

TV: ACC Network (Kevin Brown and Chris Spatola)

Radio: The Team 980, Sirius XM App (Rich Chvotkin, 51st season!)

Series: Syracuse leads 54-45. Hoyas are 12-33 away in the series.

Last Meeting: Syracuse won 80-68 last season in DC.

Streaks: Syracuse has won the last two.

KenPom Rankings: Georgetown 88, Syracuse 100

KenPom Projection: Syracuse wins 78-76 with a 57% win probability.

DraftKings Line: Hoyas +1, o/u 153, Georgetown ML +100

NOTES

Georgetown has lost three straight at Syracuse. The last win came in Dec. 2016 during JT3’s last season.

WHAT’S AT STAKE

Georgetown: This is Ed Cooley’s final chance at a win vs a high major non-conference opponent this season. There was improvement from the Notre Dame blowout to last week’s second half slip up in Morgantown. Beating a bad version of Syracuse in the Dome would certainly be nice a shot in the arm heading into conference play. This is the type of game that can go along way for cementing a player’s place in the program lore. Could this be a breakout game for Malik Mack? Could Jayden Epps score his first big win at Georgetown? Maybe Thomas Sorber has an Otto-lite like performance. These are the reasons to watch.

The Series: Is this a game that will continue to be played? Well Georgetown needs to improve their schedule, not make it softer. So from that point of view, this game is a must have for the Hoyas. From the rivalry standpoint though, things appear to be trending poorly. First of all, the people at ESPN decided to stick it on the ACC Network where the commercials closely mirror SNL skits. Georgetown’s final conference visit to Syracuse drew 35K fans in 2013. Two years ago that total dipped to just a hair over 20K. This series is missing all of the ingredients that made it special – conference game (BIG EAST), people (Thompsons, Ewing, Boeheim) and most importantly nationally relevant, Top 25 programs. Pretty much all of the big rivalry non-conference games in college basketball share much closer proximity than the nation’s capital and upstate New York. Two things can help save things here. One, is playing the game after Jan. 1. The other is the teams being good, NCAA tournament caliber squads. Right not neither is happening.

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