Never in doubt

December 16, 2015 - Going into last night's game with Monmouth, the Georgetown Hoyas were riding a five game winning streak, making up in part for their 1-3 start. Monmouth, a mid-level Division I team stood as a formidable foe - the Hawks have taken down big time basketball schools UCLA, USC and Notre Dame - but a win was certainly expected by the Blue and Gray and its coach, John Thompson III.

Alas, that was not to be; Georgetown trailed consistently for almost 37 minutes of the game, falling behind by as much as 18 in the second half, trailing double digits in that period for all but around a minute, before tumbling 83-68 before 5,258 fans at Verizon Center.

What happened?

"I think our issue was our defense" said Thompson afterward, when posed a question of whether his team' 32.8% from the field and 24.1% on three pointers marks were a chief cause of defeat, one brought about by Monmouth's defensive effort. "You're going to have days when the ball is not going in the basket...particularly in the first half we were getting looks for guys that we wanted to get the looks and the ball wasn't going in. That's going to happen".

He went on to label Monmouth "a very good offensive team", telling his crew frequently "it's the best offensive team we've played all year". Last night the Hawks shot 42% overall, hit half their three pointers (10-20) and canned an impressive 83.8% from the charity stripe.

Resultantly, he summed "We have to get to where we can rely on defense in getting stops and we needed to do that today and we didn't. That coincided with us having a bad day offensively. I'm not trying to discredit them, they worked hard, they were attentive, they contested shots. But at the end of the day it was at the other end of the court and not the offensive end" where his team lost the game.

Georgetown's leading scorer, D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera (18 points) agreed, saying "I think that they were just getting into the paint too easily. A lot of drive and kicks and they were finishing at the rim. They were getting a full head of steam at the basket. I'm not sure if they got a lot of offensive rebounds (11 of their total 42 were on the offensive glass, while the Hoyas notched 14 of 33 there), but it seemed at one point that they were getting a lot of second chance buckets".

Interestingly enough the Hoyas ended up holding Monmouth's leading scorer and best player Justin Robinson, relatively in check - he finished with 12 points (over nine below his average), four rebounds, two assists and four turnovers.

It was Robinson's teammates that did the damage; Besides the 5'8" dynamo point guard, four Hawks hit double figure scoring, with junior forward Je'lon Hornbeak leading the way via 18 points followed by forwards Deon Jones and Collin Stewart plus guard Micah Seaborn, a junior, junior and redshirt freshman, respecxtively, who all tallied 13 points. Jones led the team with 10 rebounds.

"Robinson doesn't have one of his better games, but then you look and you have three or four other people in double figures" lamented Thompson. "You can't let everyone else be an option. Tonight everyone was an option for them".

Sophomore forward Isaac Copeland got on track last night, contributing 16 points, three rebounds, three assists and a swipe. Jessie Govan came off the bench to tally 14 points and four rebounds in relief of senior pivot Bradley Hayes, who only scored one point, but did snag a game best 11 caroms.

Monmouth (7-3) next travels to Rutgers, where they tip-off Sunday at 1p EST.

The Hoyas, in the midst of finals - Thompson refused to accept that as an excuse for his team's performance - are off until Saturday, when UNC-Asheville comes to town, a noon start. Tickets, starting at $3, a great deal for 200 level seats, can be snapped up here.