With emotions high at jam-packed Verizon Center on Senior Day, the Hoyas fought as hard as they could without senior point guard Chris Wright.

But heart and grit weren’t quite enough.

“I’m not trying to look for something good, but we responded,” Head Coach John Thompson III said. “It’s not like we packed it in and took a ‘woe is me’ attitude. We fought, we scrapped and we got back in it. We came out on the losing end, but we’re going to figure this out.”

In a physical 58-51 loss to No. 17 Syracuse (24-6, 11-6 Big East), No. 11 Georgetown (21-8, 10-7) was playing with very little margin for error, both in the ballgame and in the conference standings. A group that has gone 9-3 over its past 12 league games and that was on the heels of second-place Notre Dame only days ago, the Hoyas now find themselves in a fight just to finish in the Big East’s top eight.

Georgetown played rock-solid defense against the Orange, rebounded well and even came back from a 12-point second-half hole to take the lead with 10:02 to play. But 16 turnovers, a 7-of-25 showing from three-point range, 36 percent shooting from the field and a lack of execution down the stretch cancelled out all the good things the Hoyas did, as well as their constant energy and ability to make hustle plays.

“We got some good looks that didn’t go in,” Thompson said. “I think [senior forward] Julian [Vaughn] was extremely effective on the defensive end, but on the offensive end the ball didn’t go in the basket. We fought, we scrapped, but the ball just took some bad bounces.”

“I thought the difference [between] this game and the game at our place is at the end of the game we made some plays here, and in Syracuse we just couldn’t make a play,” Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim said. “Both teams gave an unbelievable effort.”

Without Wright, the Hoyas lacked a player who could create off the dribble and were forced to play freshman Markel Starks, who has had a difficult year shooting the ball, a career-high 24 minutes. On the other hand, although he was expected to play a larger role with Wright out, sophomore Vee Sanford, who has a knack for finding his shot and putting the ball in the basket, was in the game for little more than a cup of coffee.

Like Vaughn, the rest of the offensive core did not pick up quite enough slack on that end to make up for Wright’s absence. Freeman had 16 points but was only 2-of-9 from three-point range and was a non-factor in crunch time. Junior guard Jason Clark knocked down three important trifectas in the second half but scored just two points in the first half and came up small in the closing minutes. And sophomore forward Hollis Thompson went 0-for-5 from the floor, including 0-for-4 from deep.

“It was different, but like coach said, everyone needed to step up and do more of what they were doing and do it better,” Clark said of playing without Wright.

The Hoyas clearly fed off the energy of the crowd — the largest ever to turn out for a Georgetown game at Verizon Center — and played with a palpable sense of urgency. Against the Orange, a team that also played hard the entire way and which also needed a win badly, the Wright-less Hoyas were good — just not good enough.

And as they wait for Wright’s return with one regular season game left at Cincinnati next week and the Big East tournament to follow, the Hoyas will have to be just a little bit better.