This one was close – nail-biting, stomach-churning, Oh-thank-goodness-they-pulled-that-off close – the kind of close that would turn JT III’s hair gray, if he had any. It didn’t have to be. The bunch Jim Boeheim brought to Verizon Center for Big Monday was by the far the weakest he’s had in years. They were an undisciplined, erratic, wild-shooting group – a shallow team with no bench and in dire need of their missing star, injured guard Eric Devendorf. But they hung with a far superior Georgetown team until the waning seconds of overtime because the Hoyas have one glaring weakness. They have trouble rebounding the basketball. The Orange grabbed 10 more boards than the Hoyas, got more second chance buckets and scored more points in the paint despite having a center in Arinze Onuaku who stands only 6-foot-9 (6-foot-11 Donte Greene is, by all accounts, a perimeter player). The Hoyas have had problems cleaning the glass all season – they have been outrebounded seven times – but Monday night might have been their poorest performance to date. No Georgetown player registered more than nine boards, while ‘Cusers Onuaku and Paul Harris to pull down 13 and 10, respectively. Hibbert – whose 7-foot-2 height and long, rangy arms should make him a lock for double-digit rebounds each night – managed nine, and that was up against a raw Onuaku. DaJuan Summers and Patrick Ewing, the team’s second- and third-leading rebounders behind Big Roy coming into the game, combined for only five boards. Were it not for Jesse Sapp – a 6-foot-3 guard with about as much regard for his body as Lindsay Lohan – and his kamikaze seven-rebound effort, the Hoyas would have been buried for the second time in three games. Georgetown cannot, and will not, continue to win games if they can’t find a way to get more rebounds. One hundred and eighteen teams rank ahead of the Hoyas in rebounding margin. Two of them are bitter memories (Memphis, Pittsburgh), a couple can be found in the schedules’ remaining weeks (Syracuse and Villanova), and a few are hard to find on a map (Quinnipac, La Salle, Sam Houston State). Georgetown cannot claim itself among the nation’s elite until they can bang with the big names down low. North Carolina grabs 44.7 rebounds per game. Georgetown manages 35.5. The UCLA Bruins on average outrebound their opponent by 10. In Big East games, the Hoyas lose the battle of the boards by an average of five and a half per contest. As a senior, Hibbert has passed like a 7-foot John Stockton, d-ed up like a sans-afro Ben Wallace and stroked the three like a big-footed Larry Bird. But he still needs to add a little Dennis Rodman to his repertoire. “Rebounding is most important to me, like Coach always told me,” Hibbert said late last week. “Points are going to come, so that’s the easy part. But on the defensive end, that all starts with blocked shots and rebounds.” Summers must throw his 6-foot-8 frame around more, and he is perfectly capable of doing so – one needs to go no further than his monster 11-board performance against Notre Dame last weekend for proof of his potential. At a stocky 6-foot-4, 210, freshman swing man Austin Freeman – who had only two boards Monday night – has the perfect round-mound-of-rebound body that served a young Charles Barkley so well in his college days at Auburn. When asked about his team’s second-chance woes, JTII had to pause and probably fought down the urge to scream, “SERENITY NOW!!!” “I am choosing my words carefully here,” Thompson said after the 64-62 overtime squeaker. “They went and got it a few more times than we did. We have seen that happen too much this year.” One gets the idea Thompson has poured through every page in the coaching manual trying to teach his boys to block out. “We are not going to live [with a negative rebounding margin],” Thompson said. “It continues to be a point of emphasis, it continues to be something we talk about, it continues to be something we work on. This group just isn’t good at that. As the year progresses, we have to get better at it, or we’re going to lose.” Late in overtime, with the score knotted at 62, Onuaku grabbed two offensive boards before being fouled by Summers on Syracuse’s third go-around. He went to the line and much to every Hoya fan’s relief, bricked both his foul shots. Greene grabbed his teammates’ second miss off the carom but mercifully let the ball bobble away and out of bounds. Hibbert converted on the next possession for the deciding final bucket. Against the better teams – the Louisvilles and the Marquettes further down the conference slate, or the Carolinas and the UCLAs come March – the Hoyas won’t be as fortunate.