After a loud, intimidating atmosphere in the Verizon Center during last Saturday’s win over Duke, Georgetown fans didn’t seem to realize there was a game sandwiched in between Duke and Villanova. For much of the second half the Hoyas didn’t seem to either.
No. 7 Georgetown (16-5, 6-4), fresh off its trouncing of then-No. 8 Duke struggled from the free-throw line and the field in the second half of the 72-64 loss, taking one on the chin from an upstart South Florida (15-7, 5-5) squad in front of 12,207 fans at a half-filled Verizon Center.
“This is the best win in our school history of basketball,” South Florida Head Coach Stan Heath said. “To beat an outstanding team like Georgetown, I have no idea if they were enjoying Duke or looking ahead to Villanova but we played really well, we played really hard and we became the more aggressive team in the second half.”
Early on it was all Greg Monroe for Georgetown as the sophomore center dominated the Bulls’ man-to-man defense for 10 points in the first 12 minutes and 14 in the half. The Bulls, who rode a three-game winning streak into the nation’s capital and had upset Pittsburgh, would not go away, pulling to within three on a layup by sophomore guard Dominique Jones with 7:45 to play to edge the score to 22-19.
Jones, who came into the game averaging 22.1 points per game, started off slowly due in part to the defensive job of sophomore guard Jason Clark, who spent most of his day matched up on the Bulls’ scorer. A foul by freshman forward Hollis Thompson at the 8:25 mark sent Jones to the line where he drained both. He added a layup the next time down after grabbing an offensive rebound. Another layup and one more foul shot gave Jones seven points at the break.
“He got off to a really slow start,” Heath said. “I think finally he got to the free throw line and he started attacking a little bit more and made a couple shots, and once he got going, he was really hard to stop.”
Despite Jones’ surge, the Hoyas started to pull away, amassing an 11-point lead with 90 seconds to play. Junior guard Austin Freeman, who had a team-high 21 points, led the charge with 11 first-half points.
The Hoyas built their lead back to 11 in the second half after junior guard Chris Wright (eight points, five assists) hit layups on back-to-back possessions to make the score 39-28.
Wright’s hot start was overshadowed by two quick fouls by Monroe, who picked up his second and third fouls in under 30 seconds with 19 minutes to play. Rather than sit his star center, Head Coach John Thompson III chose to let Monroe play. Monroe, who had 21 points, managed only seven points and no rebounds in the second half, but he said the fouls didn’t affect how he played.
“I didn’t change anything. Coach kept me in and I was still playing so I didn’t change anything,” Monroe said.
Down nine, Jones and the Bulls gave an already lifeless Verizon Center even more reason to be quiet, ripping off a 15-2 run to take their first lead since the score was 10-9 in the first half.
Jones had eight points for the Bulls in the run and 22 in the second half for a game-high 29.
“I think he does a very good job of taking what you give him,” Thompson said. “He does a very good job for someone who scores as many points as he does of not forcing anything.”
The Hoyas, who had seven assists to six turnovers in the first half, got sloppy in the second half with eight turnovers to just three assists.
“Chris got that first layup, and then [South Florida] slowly stuck with it and we fell out of rhythm,” Thompson said.
The Hoyas, who shot 60 percent in the first half, could not keep it up in the second stanza, shooting just 36 percent, and 48 percent for the game. South Florida shot 49 percent for the game, and a blistering 65.2 percent in the second half.
Despite the Bulls’ comeback, the Hoyas responded. Coming out of a timeout, trailing by eight at 52-44, the Hoyas broke out with a 9-4 mini-run, but missed free throws ultimately doomed Georgetown.
The free-throw line was anything but free for the Hoyas, who went 11-of-22 from the charity stripe on the day, including a woeful 6-of-14 in the final 10:09. Monroe was 3-of-7 from the line and junior forward Julian Vaughn (five points, six rebounds) was 1-of-4.
“The things that happen during the course of a game, we take pride in controlling the things we can control, and today we didn’t control the things that we can control, being foul shots and some of those turnovers,” Thompson said.
A questionable foul on Monroe with 2:59 to play sent the sophomore to the bench and allowed junior forward Jarrid Famous to increase the USF lead to 59-56 with a free throw. A missed three by Wright the next time down was answered with a mid-range jumper from Jones to make the lead five. The Hoyas went to the line on both of the next two possessions, but only managed to go 1-for-4. Two layups by the Bulls increased the lead to eight, sealing the Hoyas’ fate.
After a stirring win on Saturday, the Hoyas are now left with plenty of questions to answer as they prepare for No. 2 Villanova.
“I don’t know what happened tonight,” Monroe said. “We definitely [weren’t] looking backwards and we definitely [weren’t] looking forwards. As a team, we have to be more focused to win games like this.”
The Hoyas host Villanova on Saturday at Verizon Center. Tipoff is set for noon.
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