LINKS: Georgetown Could Not Close on Seton Hall, Heads to UConn

No time for pirate puns here, on to the next rum.

Your Georgetown Hoyas (8-8, 1-4) put up a good fight down the stretch against a surging Seton Hall Pirates (11-5, 4-1 Big East) but came up a bit short, 74-70. The Hoyas have a two-game road trip starting swing with 4/4 UConn on Sunday, January 14 (noon, FOX) at the XL Center.

Against Seton Hall, the Hoyas sandbagged the first 10 minutes before transforming back into a BIG-EAST-caliber team. The comeback effort was far more exhilarating because of the poor start, but Progress is certainly present, but the mistakes are still a bit too prevalent at this point.

I will say one thing: this blog has been clamoring for a pick-and-lob play for at least a decade.

Here are the links:

Second-Half Surge Not Enough as Hoyas Fall 74-70 to Seton Hall – Georgetown University Athletics | Georgetown University Athletics

“I thought out of the 40 minutes of basketball, we played 24 minutes with a connection, with a spirit, with an activity, with an understanding. You’ve got to give Seton Hall credit, they showed their veteran leadership. I’m disappointed in our execution under four minutes, that’s what we coaches are paid for. So this loss is 100% on me. Three-point lead with the ball; three-straight turnovers. I don’t know if that’s players or so much as it is me, the coach, needing to instill a lot more confidence in our guys and working on endgame execution … I think we have come a long way. We have a long way to go, but I’m going to look at how far we’ve come. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re getting there.” – Head Coach Ed Cooley

Pirate Seniors Step Up Late In Road Win At Georgetown, 74-70 – Seton Hall University Athletics | Seton Hall University Athletics

The Pirates opened the second half on an 8-2 run that was capped off by a Richmond three-pointer and it gave Seton Hall a 14-point lead again, 47-33. After the Hoyas made it a four-point game with 14:08 left, senior Dre Davis (Indianapolis, Ind.) would score the the Pirates’ next eight points and it helped keep The Hall in front, 55-47. With the Pirates leading by four with 6:57 left, the Hoyas went on a 7-0 run to take their first lead of the game, 65-62, with 3:15 left.

That’s when the Seton Hall seniors took charge and helped the Pirates pull out the road victory. Georgetown had the ball up three with under three minutes to play when Addae-Wusu came up with his fourth steal of the night and found a trailing Dawes on the fast break who got fouled. Following a media timeout, Dawes sank both free throws that cut Georgetown’s lead to one, 65-64.

Seton Hall fights back after blown lead, tops Georgetown | Field Level Media – Professional sports content solutions | FLM

Seton Hall finished 27-of-45 (60 percent) from the field and outscored the Hoyas 23-19 in points off turnovers despite committing five more turnovers.

Georgetown hit 10 3-pointers on a season-high 35 attempts but was outscored 36-18 in the paint.

The Pirates dominated the game’s first nine minutes before a technical foul on the Hoyas slowed down the pace and swung the momentum over to the Hoyas.

Rash of turnovers ends the Hoyas’ hopes for a surprise of Seton Hall | Washington Post (Patrick Stevens)

Georgetown’s well-chronicled defensive woes proved especially costly early in Big East play, and the Pirates were well on their way to trampling the Hoyas in the first nine minutes. Seton Hall built a 24-8 advantage, at one point leading a gobsmacked Cooley to call timeouts after consecutive Pirates possessions ended with easy baskets.

With little to lose, Cooley switched to a zone defense that confounded Seton Hall, which had grown accustomed to scampering into the lane without any obstacles. The Pirates fumbled away 12 turnovers in the first half — nine in the last 11 minutes — and led just 39-31 at halftime despite shooting 72.7 percent.

“It got us back in the game,” Cooley said.

Jayden Epps scores 30 points but Georgetown falls | Washington Time (AP)

Al-Amir Dawes scored 25 points as Seton Hall beat Georgetown 74-70 on Tuesday night… Kadary Richmond scored 20 points and added eight rebounds and eight assists. Dre Davis was 5-of-11 shooting, including 0 for 3 from 3-point range, and went 2 for 3 from the free-throw line to finish with 12 points.

The Hoyas (8-8, 1-4) were led by Jayden Epps, who recorded 30 points and five assists. Supreme Cook added 13 points and two blocks for Georgetown. In addition, Jay Heath finished with 10 points.

Seton Hall basketball holds on at Georgetown, stays in 1st place | Asbury Park Press

These foes have been squaring off since 1909. Georgetown now leads the rivalry 60-59, but Seton Hall owns a six-game winning streak over the Hoyas, its longest in the series since capturing the first nine from 1909-1952.

Obviously this is not your father’s Georgetown, and first-year skipper Ed Cooley has to repair a ton of damage from the disastrous Patrick Ewing era. For example: Roughly 2,000 fans showed up for this game in cavernous Capital One Arena (capacity: 20,300).

Holloway is now 2-2 as a head coach against mentor Cooley, including 2-1 with the Pirates. Cooley credited the Hall’s backcourt – “they controlled the game,” he said. Holloway tipped his hat to Hoyas sophomore Jayden Epps (30 points) and said, “That team played free, and when you play free, it’s scary.”

Seton Hall beats Georgetown for 3rd straight win, takes sole possession of first place in Big East | nj

After Seton Hall led the entire game, the Hoyas used a 7-0 run to seize a 65-62 lead.

The Hall answered with an 8-0 run — including two sweet moves in the paint by Richmond and a steal and layup by Dylan Addae-Wusu — to go back ahead 70-65.

Epps drained a 3-pointer to cut it to 72-70, but Dawes hit two foul shots to push it to 74-70.

“I wasn’t happy with our defense down the stretch,” Holloway said. “I’m calling guys out. It’s my senior leadership. You guys wanna play offense, you gotta play defense. We were awful today and turned the ball over (17 times)….Seventeen turnovers against a zone is unacceptable, I’m really upset.

Archbishop Ryan star senior Thomas Sorber derives his power from his mom | City of Basketball Love

Sorber plays on that rare pantheon with a fine blend of size, quickness, and agility, and will go down as the greatest player in Ryan history.

He is 17 pounds lighter, undergoing a complete body change, and as he gets older and more mature, he is finding a new faculty to singlehandedly change games that he did not know he had.

It comes from within. It comes from, he senses, a six-year-old who adapted to how cold the world could be. He also knows where he derives his power—“My mom,” he says.

“My mom stepped up as mother and father to both me and my brother,” says Thomas, who cannot help but smile when he talks.

Then he whisked back to that day, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, sitting on the living room floor, a six-year-old playing video games watching the solemn look on the faces as they streamed into the house that morning. He goes back to his maternal grandfather pulling he and his older brother, Peter, aside to the rear kitchen to tell them that their father had died. Peter, then 11, burst into tears. Thomas immediately ran to console him, rubbing his back.

The Breakfast Buffet: Parity is again dominating college basketball, Marcus Domask, Frankie Collins | College Hoops Today

The Final Four did not feature a single one or two seed last season. Don’t be surprised if history repeats itself in a few months. In the past two days, the four top teams in this week’s ROTHSTEIN 45 — Purdue, Kansas, Houston, and Tennessee — all lost road games to teams who were not ranked in the Top 25 of the ROTHSTEIN 45. Those defeats don’t include Marquette’s home loss on Wednesday to Butler. Much like last season, this sport may not have a dominant team.

Xavier takeaways: Hassan Diarra is an unstoppable force of human nature | The UConn Blog

I just want to get this out there: This Georgetown game has every making of a trap game. Ed Cooley’s Hoyas at home at the XL Center on Sunday at 12 p.m. with an absolute showdown against No. 22 Creighton looming next Wednesday at Gampel Pavilion. UConn cannot look past this Georgetown team and think it can coast to No. 1 heading into next week — Georgetown played the Huskies very tough in Washington, DC last season and while the Hoyas have a mostly new roster, they can’t be taken lightly.

UConn: preview, matchups, keys to the game | Banners on the Parkway

It should also be noted that UConn plays slow. They grind incredibly long possessions on offense and try to slow down their opponents on defense. They’re 324th overall in adjusted tempo, which is obviously very slow.

Their defense is good, 38th in the nation overall. They’re just inside the top 50 in both EFG% and DReb%, the latter of which is not as dominant as you might expect judged only by their OReb% number. What does leap off the page is that they’re 10th in the country in holding opponents to 43% from inside the arc, and they block almost 14% of all two-point attempts. They can be a little foul prone and they don’t force a ton of turnovers, but they do an excellent job of chasing the ball off the arc and then making life miserable in and around the paint.

No. 4 UConn men’s basketball takes down Xavier, 80-75 | The UConn Blog

Five minutes later, it was Diarra again who kept the Huskies ahead. The senior guard parted the Xavier defense for an easy transition layup, then hit a three on the next possession. The Huskies added four more points to stretch the lead to 74-60 with 5:39 remaining — UConn’s largest lead of the night.

While Newton carried the offense for stretches with a 16-point, 11-assist performance and Cam Spencer led the Huskies with 19 points, no one came up bigger in the second half than Diarra. He scored all 11 of his points in the second half and is now shooting 75 percent from three (6-8) in January. Castle (12 points, eight assists, five rebounds) was the fifth Husky in double figures.