February 27, 2018 - Last night in losing to Marquette 80-86 in overtime before 8,375 Capital One Arena fans, Georgetown again let a winnable game, a contest the Hoyas should have secured, slip away. A visibly fatigued head coach, Pat Ewing, discussed it afterward.
“Our defensive effort just wasn’t what we needed to have. All year long we’ve been a pretty good defensive team. It just wasn’t there” opined Ewing, in his first year as G’Town’s head coach.
MU shot impressive clips of 50.9% from the floor and a whopping 58.1% on here pointers with 18 makes, while having three players score strong double figures; senior guard Sam Hauser and sophomore forward Andrew Rowsey both logged 28 points, while junior guard Markus Howard logged 16 points.
Rowsey added 10 assists, only committing three turnovers, work lauded by his head coach, Steve Wojchiechowski.
“Andrew played an outstanding game…His nine points down the stretch (overtime), we needed every one of those” said Wojochiechowsk. Rowsey logged 75% of the team’s bonus period points, though his coach identified a first 20 minute long three ball at intermission’s buzzer which “gave us a little bit of momentum going into halftime”, cutting their deficit to six.
Georgetown got heroics from senior guard Jonathan Mulmore, whose coast to coast layup with under four seconds in regulation answered a Hauser jumper, earning the Hoyas another five minutes of play via a 78-78 tie.
“I used my speed and finished at the rim” recalled Mulmore, who logged 16 points and four assists, of the game’s most exciting sequence.
Ewing noted of Mulmore “He made a great play…He did a great job, saw an opening, and just took it”. Wojchiechowski applauded his Hoya counterpart for “not calling a timeout, and allowing us to set our defense”, while tipping his hat to Mulmore and the Hoyas: “ We hit a tough shot, and they inbounded the ball quickly to their quickest guy. And as we were running and back pedaling, he’s faster with the ball then we were capable of running. And he made a big time play.
“I thought they executed it very well. And those are things that you see in the game. Obviously we could have sprinted back better, but at that time there’s a little bit of shock; ‘Oh my gosh’. That half second gives a guy like Mulmore a head of steam, and he only needs about three seconds to get the ball in the basket. And they did”.
Offensively junior center Jessie Govan scored 25 points, while classmate forward Marcus Derrickson chipped in 15 points. Wojchiechowski dubbed that tandem “the best frontcourt in the BIG EAST”.
Freshman guard Jahvon Blair finished with 16 points, all scored from beyond the three point line or at the charity stripe for Georgetown, which shot 45.6% overall and 43.5% on three pointers.
Rebounding was another point of disappointment for Ewing; his team was out-boarded by the Golden Eagles 34-33, despite the visitors ranking last in the stat among BIG EAST teams.
“We should have dominated them on the boards and we did not. Even our big guys (struggled), they can’t stand on the perimeter and watch the shot go up. We can’t if we want to win” shared the coach.
Georgetown, almost six rebounds under their league leading mark, saw Govan pull down nine, while freshman Jamorko Pickett snatched six. Matt Heldt, a junior Golden Eagle center led all rebounders with 10, and Hauser was credited with six.
The game was significant for both teams standings wise – Georgetown, now 15-13, 5-12 and eighth in the BIG EAST, a full three games behind Marquette’s 8-9 league mark. For the season MU stands 17-12.
Each is off until Saturday, when Creighton travels to Milwaukee for a 1:30p CST start. The Hoyas are on the road, tripping to Philadelphia, where the BIG EAST’s second slotted team and the nation’s fourth, Villanova, awaits at 5p EST.
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