As droves of students, faculty, staff and alumni poured into Capital One Arena for a marquee afternoon showdown against old Big East rival Notre Dame, the energy surrounding Georgetown men’s basketball was at its best in years. However, by the time the final buzzer sounded, the Hoya faithful once again experienced a brutal gut punch, with their team losing 84-63 to the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame (3-0, 0-0 ACC) dominated Georgetown (2-1, 0-0 Big East) in the highly anticipated non-conference matchup. Last season, the Hoyas beat the Fighting Irish in a similar matchup before the start of Big East competition, but the team was unable to deliver this time around. In the loss, however, three Georgetown players — first-year center and Big East freshman of the week Thomas Sorber (12 points, 4 rebounds), junior guard Jayden Epps (13 points, 3/9 3PT) and sophomore guard Malik Mack (16 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists) — still shined, serving as highlights in an otherwise disappointing afternoon.
With a packed student section and enthusiastic recent alumni lining the stands, the Hoyas had one of their biggest opportunities in recent memory to send a message to the nation that they were back up on top. At first, the team appeared to be doing just that. The Hoyas opened up the game with a 4-0 lead after quick buckets by sophomore center Drew Fielder (2 points, 1 rebound) and sophomore forward Jordan Burks (5 points, 4 rebounds). However, in a sign of things to come, Notre Dame went on a devastating 6-0 run — their first of many — powered by junior forward Tae Davis (13 points, 8 rebounds) and fifth-year grad transfer Matt Allocco (17 points, 4/8 3PT) to flip the score in their favor.
Allocco, a 2x All-Ivy League selection in his past two seasons at Princeton, showed why new Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry had made him a priority recruit. Allocco shot 4-4 in 3-pointers during the first half to give Notre Dame a lead it would not relinquish. Allocco’s back-to-back 3s quickly flipped a 7-6 deficit into a 12-7 Irish advantage, and an ensuing 7-0 run by Davis punctuated Notre Dame’s largest run of the game, a 13-0 killer that put Georgetown in a 19-7 hole at the 12-minute mark they had no chance to come back from.
Notre Dame continued to torment a porous Georgetown defense to take a 44-29 lead into the locker room. As a team, the Irish shot an impressive 65% from the floor in the first half and eliminated any hope of a Georgetown victory before the second half even began. Adding to the misery, Georgetown’s shooting was appalling. The Hoyas finished the game shooting 31.4% from the floor and a disastrous 8-32 from beyond the arc.
Other than a brief Georgetown run capped off by back-to-back 3s for Jayden Epps that cut the deficit to 50-40 for the Hoyas, the second half was relatively mundane. Notre Dame continued to keep Georgetown out of striking distance for a comeback, despite its shooting cooling off a bit from its otherworldly numbers in the first half. While Allocco and Davis learned what it meant to miss for the first time all afternoon in the second half, preseason All-ACC first team guard, sophomore Markus Burton (16 points, 5 assists), sliced, diced and tormented a weak Georgetown zone defense. Burton put Georgetown bigs in uncomfortable positions and used his speed and brilliant basketball IQ to knock down devastating mid-ranges and find Irish big men cutting to the basket for powerful slams.
A layup by Matt Allocco at the 4:27 mark pushed the Irish lead to a game-high 25 points and sent a disappointed Georgetown student section back to campus early. When all was said and done, Notre Dame — despite its 2-20 road record over the last two years — was able to leave Capital One Arena and send a powerful statement to the ACC about their team’s depth and overall strength this season. As for the Hoyas, the team will lament missing out on a major non-conference opportunity and have to regroup for a 5-game, 16-day homestand against five mid-majors before a December 6 clash at West Virginia University.
In the postgame presser, a disappointed and frustrated Coach Ed Cooley panned his team’s lack of energy and chemistry, but did note that one of the team’s early stars — Sorber — had been struggling with a cold. In a break with tradition, Coach Cooley gave way for his two upperclassmen, fifth-year forward Micah Peavy (8 points, 4/9 FG) and guard Jayden Epps, to give the opening statements. Both expressed shock at the result given a good week of practice and preparation, but also wanted to make it known that they’ll get back to the drawing board and look at what went wrong for the Hoyas.
“We— I thought we had a really good week, prepared for that team. I don’t think we came out, I think they were hungrier than us coming out,” Epps said. “We had a whole week to prepare for them. I personally thought we were more prepared, Coach thought we were more prepared.”
Coach Cooley delivered a particularly sobering assessment of the Hoyas’ defensive performance.
“Terrible, F minus, F minus. Terrible, absolutely horrendous, we didn’t guard a soul,” Cooley said.
Georgetown knew this game represented their biggest opportunity in years to send a message that their time in the Big East cellar was over. However, ice-cold shooting and a lamentable defensive performance left fans and the Hoyas equally disappointed. Ahead of the next game, however, Georgetown will need to address the poor shot selection, lack of ball and off-ball movement and the puzzling implementation of a 3-2 zone defense that seemed to play right into Notre Dame’s hands.
The Hoyas will return to Capital One Arena Wednesday night to take on their second Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference opponent of the year, Mount St. Mary’s University (3-1, MAAC 0-0). The Mountaineers enter the contest on a 2-game win streak, but the Hoyas will be heavy favorites for this tilt. Fans can tune into the contest on FS1 at 8:30 PM ET.