DURHAM, N.C. – For 20 minutes, it was Jan. 21, 2006 all over again. Georgetown, with a seven point lead, had proven itself to be better than Duke in virtually every facet of the game. The contest was the Hoyas’ for the taking – as long as they could just keep it up for another half.
That’s the thing about halftime, though. Teams make adjustments. Unlike in a quick two-minute timeout, coaches can implement new schemes and strategies and describe them in great detail. Coaches can pull individual players aside and give them personal instruction. A team can change its whole mindset.
Saturday, both teams made adjustments at the half – Duke for the better and Georgetown for the worse.
Blue Devils Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski realized that the Hoyas were doing exactly what they had done last year: using Duke’s tight man-to-man defense to their advantage and creating open lanes to the basket. And when they couldn’t make things happen on their own, Georgetown’s junior big men, center Roy Hibbert and forward Jeff Green (five first-half assists), dished the ball off, usually to hot-handed sophomore guard Jessie Sapp, who had an outstanding first half in his own right and finished with 11 points.
Despite a 1-for-8 showing from beyond the arc, Georgetown still managed to finish the half shooting a torrid 57.7 percent. Fifteen baskets, 11 assists. All was right for the Hoyas.
So what did Coach K do in response?
“We stopped following them,” he said. “Part of that was that we changed our point of pick-up. It was more at the top of the key and we switched everything, which is a little bit like zone. Then we added the doubling of the post so they couldn’t get a fluid move into the lane and would have to shoot over along the baseline.”
That zone defense – hybrid zone, or whatever you’d like to call it – has been veritable kryptonite to the Hoyas, preventing Georgetown from blowing out Hartford and giving the team fits when used by Old Dominion. Georgetown has yet to come up with an answer for the zone-like defense.
There are really two ways to break a zone: dribble drive to the basket or shoot from outside. Jumpers from the elbow – something that Brandon Bowman (COL ’06) mastered toward the end of last year – help, too.
But instead of telling Sapp to go purposefully to the hole – a skill at which he has proven adept – Georgetown decided to emphasize Green and Hibbert in spite of the double teams.
“In the second half we just tried to get our big men more involved,” said Sapp, who attempted just one layup in the second half. (He missed.) “[We] tried to get their big men into some foul trouble. Just kept throwing it down, hoping that things would work out for us.”
Well, they didn’t work out. But instead of realizing this and switching things up, it was same old, same old for the Hoyas. Give the ball to Green, usually on the perimeter, or Hibbert, usually on the low block, and hope for the best. The two preseason first team all-Big East selections combined for 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting, 7 boards, one assist and five turnovers. Not terrible numbers, but not nearly enough production – and far too many turnovers – from the team’s two best players and the collective focal point of the offense.
“At the end of the day, if we’re going to put it in anybody’s hands, it’s going to be one of those two guys,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said, “and we’re going to let them make a decision on what happens.”
Unfortunately, they just couldn’t decide.
You can’t blame a team that shoots just 30 percent from beyond the arc for not relying on its outside shooting to pick up the slack. But after finishing 1-for-8 in the first half from deep, the only improvement the Hoyas made was shooting less, finishing 1-for-6 in the second half. Junior guard Jonathan Wallace, Georgetown’s one consistent outside shooter, finished 1-of-4 from three and struggled to find open looks all night.
“[Paulus] did a good job on Wallace,” Krzyzewski said. “I like Wallace; he’s a really good guard and their best shooter and he only had seven points, which was a big thing for us.”
Down the stretch, with the game on the line, there wasn’t anybody on the Hoyas’ sideline who could be relied upon to make a key bucket. Hibbert and Green were both double-teamed, tentative and prone to turnovers. Wallace couldn’t find a shot outside and couldn’t finish inside. Sapp abandoned his bread-and-butter slashing ability and appeared unsure of himself. And no one else on the roster had the experience, wherewithal, or smarts to right a ship that was sinking in the most hostile of waters, Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Said Thompson, “[The Blue Devils] definitely changed what they were doing, which is why we tried to change what we were doing at the same time, but it didn’t turn out as we wanted.”
Meanwhile, at the other end of the floor, Duke’s offense, which shot just 28.6 percent in the first half, sprang to life after halftime. Sophomore Greg Paulus, a guard who only occasionally lives up to the seemingly endless hype he receives, played terribly in the first half but was excellent in the second, finishing with 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the floor (1-of-2 from three) and 4-of-4 from the line – and with only one turnover, despite having the ball in his hands more than anyone else.
Paulus’ end-to-end drives to the basket with 4:57 and 4:03 left went a long way to put the nail in the coffin for the Hoyas.
“He stepped up bigger than I’ve ever seen,” sophomore forward Josh McRoberts said of teammate Paulus. “That was the best game I’ve ever seen him play. He really stepped up big when we needed him.”
Freshman guard Jon Scheyer played like a veteran himself, scoring nine second-half points. He cashed five of his six free throws and he scored on a fast break with 2:21 left to push the Blue Devils’ lead to six.
Making the Hoyas’ collapse all the more frustrating, Georgetown was more talented and more experienced than Duke at nearly every position. Hibbert, Green and Wallace have all started since the first game of their freshman year. Sapp played in every game a year ago. In the second half, neither team played a senior, but Georgetown played juniors for 57 minutes, compared to just 19 for the Blue Devils. Conversely, freshmen and sophomores played 81 minutes for Duke, but just 43 for the Hoyas.
The game ultimately boiled down to the Hoyas getting outsmarted and outcoached. The effort was there. The execution – by both players and coaches – was not.