Charles Nailen/The Hoya Senior Rebekkah Brunson has dominated in the post position recently, but she could not help Georgetown from losing to West Virginia 70-61 on Wednesday.

If basketball games only lasted 20 minutes, the Georgetown women’s team would have a near-sterling record. But these contests drag on at least twice as long, oftentimes leaving the Hoyas a little short. Wednesday night’s battle against West Virginia played out in the usual fashion as the Mountaineers (14-5, 5-2 Big East) handed their visitors a 70-61 loss after a troubled second half.

Last Sunday, facing defeat only at the last seconds against Rutgers, Georgetown tried to pick up the pieces of what has so far been an up-and-down season. While victories over Virginia Tech and St. John’s seemed to show that the team may have hit its stride, the past two games certainly showed it lurching.

“We got careless with the ball,” Georgetown Head Coach Pat Knapp said. “We always stress being ball aggressive, screening people, passing the ball clearly. We didn’t do that in this game.”

While the teams were trading baskets in the first minutes of play, halfway through the first half, West Virginia began to pull away. With six minutes left in the half, the Mountaineers had extended their lead to eight points, 22-14. The Hoyas, however, pressed on to score 20 points in those last minutes to eclipse the home team and grab the lead, 34-30, heading into the locker rooms at the half.

Both teams shot decently in the first half with Georgetown leading with 46.4 percent and West Virginia with 43.5 percent. Senior forward Rebekkah Brunson has dominated from the post position all season long, and in the first half she was at it again with 12 points.

Things began to sour quickly for the Hoyas once the second half began. The Mountaineers, after closing out the first half sluggishly, came back motivated and quickly made their point with an 11-0 run. Senior guard Kate Bulger led the offensive charge for the team with four field goals in a three-minute span, including two three-pointers.

“We left their shooters wide open. When we left Bulger open those four times, she was very, very damaging,” Knapp said.

With more than nine minutes left in the game, the Hoyas had whittled down their hosts’ lead to three points, 50-47, but when Bulger hit another basket from behind the arc, it triggered another Mountaineer upswing that kept the home team on top. With 16 turnovers throughout the game, Georgetown had trouble sustaining its momentum on offense and could not launch any last-minute turnarounds to finish the game with a win. West Virginia coasted to its fifth consecutive victory in a surprisingly strong season, 70-61.

While Bulger took off with a game-high 21 points and five three-pointers, the Hoyas faltered with 8-of-27 shooting, or 29.6 percent. Brunson did well inside, finishing with a team-high 19 points and eight rebounds. Junior guards Mary Lisicky and Bethany LeSueur combined for 26 points. Four Mountaineers finished with double-digit scoring, including the younger Bulger sister, freshman guard Meg, who added 11 points from off the bench. West Virginia got 19 points from the bench, whereas Georgetown had only five, all coming from freshman guard Kate Carlin.

The loss drops Georgetown back down to .500 with a 9-9 record while the team now stands at 11th in a field of 14 competitors in the conference. With few easy competitors lining the schedule, the Hoyas must learn to dig deeper if the team wants to be more of a factor in the Big East.

“Certainly, people can execute better. We went into the game at No. 65 in the RPI, and we can clearly make strides by beating the teams ahead of us,” Knapp said. “But it begs the question of the players, `What are you doing?’ We have some things we know we can correct.”

In a night of long-distance shooting on Wednesday, the Hoyas made four of their 12 three-point attempts, whereas the ountaineers nailed seven of their 19 tries. Villanova, Georgetown’s next opponent, was able to take out their foes with some of the nation’s best three-point shooters on its roster. This year, with two of those players gone, the Wildcats are sporting a different look. They are still a first-rate team, and are lurking just outside the top 25.

“Although they [Villanova] don’t have the same to great shooters, Villanova plays well together as a team and we can’t just focus on one player or outside shooting,” Knapp said. “Can we play strong team defense all around the court? That’s what we will need to stop them.”

After two games on the road, Georgetown returns to McDonough Gymnasium on Saturday. The tip-off is at 1 p.m.