Thursday will mark the 728th day since Georgetown last played an NCAA tournament basketball game. It was in Philadelphia on March 22, 2013 that the second-seeded Hoyas, led by all-American sophomore forward Otto Porter, took the floor looking to contend for a national championship.

However, what appeared to be the start of a tournament run turned out to be a dead end. 15-seeded Florida Gulf Coast — soon to be known to most Americans as “Dunk City” — ran Georgetown off the floor in spectacular fashion that night, writing the latest chapter in the program’s recent history of underachievement in the postseason.

Now, nearly two full years later, fourth-seeded Georgetown (21-10, 12-6 Big East) will make its return to the biggest stage in the sport when it faces 13-seeded Eastern Washington (26-8, 14-4 Big Sky) in Portland, Ore., on Thursday night.

Georgetown may be less of a title contender than it was two years ago, but Thursday’s round of 64 games offers an opportunity to spark a tournament run while alleviating some of the pain from recent years’ disappointments.

Doing so will not be easy. Eastern Washington comes into the matchup off of a 69-65 win over Montana in the Big Sky championship game and boasts the third most prolific offense in the country, averaging 80.8 points per game. Sophomore guard Tyler Harvey leads the Eagles and the entire country in scoring with 22.9 points per game.

Although perhaps unfamiliar to the casual east coast fan, Eastern Washington was immediately recognized by Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III.

“I know Eastern Washington is a very good team,” Thompson said shortly after learning of his team’s first round draw on Sunday. “I was flipping through the channels a couple of weeks ago and happened to watch them play. They have the leading scorer in the country; they can score a lot of points.”

The Eagles do most of their damage on offense from behind the arc, where the team has taken 43.2 percent of its field goals against Division I opponents, the 18th highest rate in the country.

However, not only does Eastern Washington take a lot of threes, it makes a lot of threes. The team is the 14th most accurate three-point shooting squad in the country, having made 39.6 percent of such attempts against Division I opponents. Harvey shoots 42.8 percent from deep, and six of the Eagles’ top seven scorers make more than 33 percent of their three-point attempts.

“They can score the ball really well,” junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera said. “Everybody can shoot the ball and everybody can score from within the realm of their offense. It’ll be a tough challenge trying to contain everybody.”

On the defensive end of the floor, Eastern Washington struggles to slow down opponents. The Eagles have allowed 73.6 points per game this season, good for 324th out of 351 Division I teams. Although it lives by the three-pointer on offense, Eastern Washington often dies by the three-pointer on defense, where it allows opponents to make a crisp 38.4 percent of attempts.

For Georgetown, that will presumably mean a lot of shots for Smith-Rivera, as well as senior guard Jabril Trawick and freshman forward Isaac Copeland, who all make more than 37.5 percent of their three-pointers.

The Hoyas will also look to exploit a size mismatch down low. Eastern Washington will need to come with double teams against senior center Joshua Smith, who will make the Eagles’ frontcourt of 6-foot-8-inch junior forward Venky Jois and 6-foot-7-inch forward Ognjen Miljkovic look tiny.

However, Milijkovic is confident the size discrepancy will work in his favor.

“He seems slow to me, so I think I can take advantage of him,” the Serbia native said to the Spokesman-Review.

Eastern Washington has reason to feel confident. Indiana, a 10 seed in the tournament, is the lone mutual opponent for the Eagles and the Hoyas this season. The Eagles beat the Hoosiers in Indiana by two, while the Hoyas dispatched them at Madison Square Garden by four in overtime.

Eastern Washington is looking to become the sixth consecutive double-digit seed to knock Georgetown out of an NCAA tournament. That streak stretches back to 2008, when the 10-seeded and Stephen Curry-led Davidson beat the second-seeded Hoyas in the round of 32, a year after Georgetown reached its first final four since 1985.

In spite of Georgetown’s struggles against teams that were ranked lower than itself in past NCAA tournaments, at least one statistic from this season suggests that Georgetown will fare well against Eastern Washington tonight. The Hoyas are 17-0 against sub-top-50 RPI teams this season, a category that includes the Eagles at No. 78.

For Smith-Rivera, recent misfortune in the Big Dance will have no impact on Thursday night’s game.

“[The game] is as important as if [the streak] didn’t happen at all,” the junior said. “It’s business time, it’s either win or go home. We don’t play again if we don’t win so it’s all business, no fun at this point.”

If Georgetown can advance past Eastern Washington, it will play the winner of fifth-seeded Utah (24-8, 15-5 Pac 12) and 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin (29-4, 17-1 Southland) on Saturday for the right to advance to the South Region’s semifinals.

Thursday night’s game is scheduled to tip at 9:57 pm EST and will be broadcast on TruTv.