Hoyas' offensive display of defense caps Big East's terrible Thursday
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The last straw had to be the alley-oop. Ohio University ran the play on Georgetown in a first half full of Hoyas defensive meekness and inexcusable softness. Then came that dunk on their head. It had to trigger some sort of anger in the Hoyas right? Right?
There was no payback. No increase in intensity. There was nothing but the distinct sound of Georgetown bowing out quietly.
The mighty Hoyas empire and its overrated conference, the Big East, continued to be complacent patsies even after Ohio ran that circus dunk. The humiliation didn't stop there. The Bobcats shot 56.5 percent from 3-point range because there was no hand in the face, no warm Hoyas body within the area code, no defensive meanness.
In like a Hoya, out like a dough-eyed lamb. The final score was 97-83 but the game wasn't really that close. This was Ohio the Hoyas were playing, a 14 seed, not Kansas -- and yet this loss will go down as one of the worst in the history of Georgetown basketball. The 97 points are the most Georgetown has given up all season.
The last time the Hoyas lost in the opening round of the NCAA tournament was 1997, when they fell to Charlotte. Before this game, Georgetown hadn't lost to a MAC team since March of 1975.
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| The Georgetown Hoyas begin that long walk into the offseason. (AP) |
Let the ripping begin. Many of us idiots in the media preened and declared the Big East the biggest and the baddest (guilty as charged). Can't do that now. Not after this messy day.
The Hoyas, a three seed, fell hard. Notre Dame, a sixth seed and perennial NCAA choker, lost to Old Dominion. Marquette, another six seed, also lost. Villanova should've lost.
(And we're not even going to discuss the train wreck that was Seton Hall this past week.)
No, it doesn't get much worse for the prestige of a conference than this. The only thing missing is Syracuse losing to Vermont.
"No matter what happened before, when you get on the court, you have to play," said Georgetown's Greg Monroe, when asked to assess the state of the conference. "And I think as far as our game, they were better today. We didn't do the things we needed to do to win the game."
This isn't meant to be disrespectful to Ohio, but teams like Georgetown aren't supposed to lose to teams like the Bobcats. It's like the Road Runner losing to Wile E. Coyote. Ohio was 7-9 in Mid-American Conference play and entered its conference tournament as the ninth seed. Remember, the Hoyas during the regular season beat eventual No. 1 seeds Syracuse and Duke.
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Recap: Ohio 97, Georgetown 83 |
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The reason the unthinkable happened is simple: The Hoyas got lazy defensively. Ohio players could've broken a clavicle and would still hotly pursue. Not the Hoyas. The way Georgetown played defense against Ohio typified the Big East's difficulty in the first round this year. The defensive intimidation they displayed against each other all season so far has mostly vanished. The Hoyas allowed Ohio to take wide-open jump shots the entire game. In the second half, Ohio shot 71 percent from 3-point range and 66 percent from the field. The Hoyas looked like they wanted no part of anything physical.
They let Ohio's Armon Bassett light them on fire with 32 points.
"We're fortunate to beat a great team and great program like Georgetown," Bassett said. "But I try to tell my teammates we may not be a better team, just got to be a better team on a given night."
"We really thought we could make some noise in this tournament," Georgetown's Austin Freeman said. "We really didn't imagine we would be one-and-done."
Yet here they are, just like a bunch of their Big East counterparts after a jaw-dropping Bloody Thursday.
