Hoyas at the RAC, baby!!

[ShimmyJr]

12 minutes to game time - we need to have a quick start to keep the RAC-crazies under control. This is a team that has problems, so let's pounce on them and deflate their energy right off that bat...

[HoyaChris]

Good first half comeback. Tyler Crawford making a strong case for more time.

[IceHoya]

Tyler's playing great... and the big comeback with Jeff on the bench is very encouraging...

[Frank Black]

HOYA WIN!!!! Yeah baby! Here we come, keep coming! WE ARE GEORGETOWN! This is great!

Got Ini Kamoze playing loud right now! Here comes the Hotstepper!!

[mplshoya]

Frank said:

HOYA WIN!!!! Yeah baby! Here we come, keep coming! WE ARE GEORGETOWN! This is great!

Got Ini Kamoze playing loud right now! Here comes the Hotstepper!!

I'm the Lyrical Gangsta. GREAT WIN HOYAS

[EasyEd]

Great game, Ashanti. 3rd place in Big East!!

[Highsmith]

Great game tonight.....it was good to see them play well after watching the BC and Seton hall games where there were some pretty ragged spots.

Tyler played very well again......maybe he is becoming the type of player off the bench we hoped Owens would be. Owens still has the potential to come up with a big game, but he just hasn't been there lately. Tyler hit a nice "three", and he seems to have the back-door cut down pretty well, as this is the 2nd game I have seen him play where he got a few back-door layups.

It is a little concerning to see them lose a big portion of their lead at the end of a game for the 2nd straight game. The pressure seemed to bother them tonight.....JTIII seems to get them under control at thr right time, and since they hit FTs it didn't matter as much. However, there may be a game down the line where the FTs don't drop, and they are going to want to hold on to that 12-13 point lead a little longer. This situation is NOWHERE near as concerning or scary for me as it has been the past few years, where I started wanting them to be down by 2 or 3 at the end so they could try to come back instead of having to hold onto a lead I knew they would lose.

Good to see them able to win without a big scoring output from Green or Bowman. Obviously it is key that they both play well, but tonight it was all Ashanti, and the bench was able to pick up some of the slack.....mainly Tyler, although Amadou was in on a few good plays tonight as well.

Hopefully this week off will give everyone.....especially the freshmen......a nice rest. Then it is back to work with West Virginia. They will be tough as their midseason shooting woes seem to be coming to an end with 13 3-pointers tonight in their win against Pitt.

[ShimmyJr]

great to see AC come up big - so happy for this team and for the Westchester boys to be excited about ballin' again...looked great to me - sure the end with the pressure and everything was not great, but all-around a dominating effort by GU...

[HoyasSkins]

Good points Highsmith. Does anybody else think we might be a little bit too conservative down the stretch? Although it has worked both of the last two games, the other teams have had opportunities to come back and win. Twice it seemed like we had victories put away and all of a sudden the other team was right back in it.

Tonight the Hoyas seemed content to just use up the entire shot clock and not get a good shot off. I feel like maybe it would be wiser to use a little less clock for better shots. Once we run into a veteran team that can execute this may be a problem for us.

Kudos to a young Hoya team for having to poise and composure to put the games away.

Go Hoyas!

[Frank Black]

This is simply a game they would not have won under Esherick. They panicked a bit at the end but most teams do. The difference is they made several back door hoops that were not in the repetoire last year. Patience, shot selection, patience patience patience. Almost to a fault. A beautiful thing this offense. JTIII has put something very special together.

Third place, can you even begin to believe this? Third place?? Astonishing.

[HoyasSkins]

JT3 has really done wonders with the team. 3rd Place, 3rd place, 3rd place! It is just amazing how far this team has come so quickly.

Go Hoyas!!!!!
7-3!!!!

[StoneColdHoya]

I'm a tad bit concerned that they don't seem to handle pressure very well. Against both Rutgers and Seton Hall, we put together solid leads that we pretty much gave away when the other team began using full court pressure. In both cases, we were lucky that we had built up such a big lead and that we hit our free throws. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the hail-mary pass to Brandon will work to break many other teams' pressure. If either team had started (or could have started) pressing earlier in the game, I think things might have been a little tighter.

That said, a win's a win. Especially at the RAC. Third place after 10 conference games!! Thats' exciting. Hopefully the week off doesn't slow them down...

[DFW HOYA]

Frank said:

This is simply a game they would not have won under Esherick.

This is the kind of game they wouldn't have won before Esherick, either.

(This is where I get the three "what's with all your negative posts?" e-mails that seem to come when I talk about anything between 1997 and 1999.)

Suffice it to say that the Georgetown teams of the 1990's, whoever the coach, were equally rattled late in games, and the current team's ability to stay focused serves it well in February.

[JimmyHoya]

When was our last win at the RAC? Didn't we have a last second win a few years back?

[AllyI]

Huge win. If we split down the stretch (including 1-1 in the big east tourney) I think we're in. As for the players tonight:
Hibbert -- non factor
Green -- love how he plays within the office and really fills up the boxscore, but with his talent should be a bit more aggressive. Rutgers' freshman was more aggressive & was taking it to green at times, but Jeff is clearly the more talented player.
Bowman -- non factor for the most part, but although it wont show up in the box he helped the offense a lot by being active around the free throw line.
Cook -- Great game all around. A real leader on this team. Some really strong drives to the hoop to.
Wallace -- solid game - has been playing better since BC game
Crawford -- I wasnt sold after the BC game, but today he did more on offense than just make nice cuts and covert layups -- looked good hitting 2 FTs, a 3, and a jumper from the line. Nice D and maybe our strongest player?? Really tough on the brds -- did you see him keep his position on that offensive brd he had? Reminds me a little of that guy Pitt had (Brown?) -- a 6-4 player who's more of a SF and could develop into a strong rebounder (6 per) from that spot.
Amado -- really impressed. when he got the ball at the free throw line he would immediately turn and kick it out to the opposite wing -- also played some good D. His entrance into the game coincided with our big run in the first half.
Owens -- dumb three put up too quickly near the end -- looked like he was going to have a sick dunk at one point before getting stripped
Reed -- non factor

Overall. I just cant get over how calm this team plays. Also, their passing was really crisp tonight -- even bring the ball up the floor they moved the ball crisply. just something you didnt see before JT III. Looked lethargic for the first 10 minutes (like at BC, and v. the Hall), but really snapped out of it and were cutting sharply etc. the rest of the way -- nice to see, as I was getting worried that we'd lost a step as a team. This new found depth could be huge down the stretch and in the tourney. I can believe I just said "in the tourney."

[mplshoya]

DFW said:

This is the kind of game they wouldn't have won before Esherick, either.

(This is where I get the three "what's with all your negative posts?" e-mails that seem to come when I talk about anything between 1997 and 1999.)

Suffice it to say that the Georgetown teams of the 1990's, whoever the coach, were equally rattled late in games, and the current team's ability to stay focused serves it well in February.

I don't think its a negative post as such, but come on. Its relevant to bring up our coach for the last few seasons, but to compare it to the early 90's is just ridiculous. Esherick was a bad coach (not a mediocre coach) and I don't think its a mortal sin to compare how we did last season to this season.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

I don't know -- having been a freshman in Pops' last two seasons, the team didn't look that different from the 5 years of Esh-coached teams.

[Frank Black]

I definitely think DFW is right that this isn't a game they would have won under JTII, at least in the last few years of him. A point worth making, definitely. But Pops gets a pass because he ended his career way ahead in the ledger.

[EasyEd]

Was it my imagination but didn't III switch his offense half-way through the game? At first, it was putting the center (Hibbert, Green, AMD) at the top of the key but later it was a more spread-out offense with a guard in the middle a little farther out. Seemed to me to be a different approach - maybe adjusting to the defense.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

I don't remember specifics, but a couple of months ago, someone posted a link to a Princeton Offense primer. I believe there are two basic looks (with tons of variation on each): one that puts the big man at the high post, and one that has the big in the low post. To this point of the season, we've seen mostly the high-post centered look, probably because it is the one that Coach has been working on getting the team to run in the beginning. Now, we may be getting some glimpses of the other version.

Like many have said, tlhis offense (or the new "PrinceTown" version of it) takes at least 2-3 years to fully incorporate into a team's game. I think we'll continue to see new looks as the season progresses, but I think that next year's team will take this offense into things we haven't even had a glimpse of at this point.