Georgetown 24 - Illinois 31 (Halftime)

[MEGAFAN]

Hoyas only score two points in the last 5:00/+ of the half.

Ashanti leads the way with 9 points on 4-5 shooting. However, Jeff Green leaves early with 2 fouls, so expect much more out of him in the second half. Bowman has played well, but at times forcing the action a little. Hoyas unlucky with a couple of buckets that should have been put back, such as by Hibbert, on offensive rebounds, etc.

As is usually the case with young teams, they were not able to control the tempo during the end of the half, when Illinois picked up their defensive intensity. However, they have played pretty darn well for such a young team.

GO HOYAS!!! SHOCK THE WORLD: UPSET #1 ILLINOIS!

[JohnJacquesLayup]

I was unable to make the game and only had the ESPN.com play by play function to keep up. One phrase I saw over and over again for the Hoyas was "missed layup." Can someone who witnessed the game please tell me if we simply did just miss a lot of layups or if there is more to the play and the internet broadcast just summarizes the actual situation?

Thanks,

-JJ

[MEGAFAN]

We did miss a significant number of gimme's, but by no means was this the reason we lost this game. There were a couple of easy opportunities, exemplified by one where Hibbert could have simply dunked the ball, but spun underneath and put up a kinda ridiculous scoop shot for a 7 footer.

Otherwise, early in the game Green missed a chance or two, we also missed on a couple of put-back chances, and Bowman and Ross had a drive or two which were difficult but makeable and missed. This one drive by Bowman was perhaps his most agressive move of the game, and the commentators said that it was a "million dollar move with a 5 cent finish."

On the yahoo play by play, sometimes what is called a missed layup may be a very difficult drive or shot, and so it wouldn't be fair to say that each time it says "missed layup," that we should have scored. I'm still digesting this loss, but basically, IMO, it came down to poor execution at the end of the first half, and then Illinois really turned up the heat during the first few minutes of the second half. That, coupled with Green in early foul trouble, and Bowman being locked down, resulted in not enough fire power to overcome Illinois' quickness and defensive intensity.

GO HOYAS!!!

[SFHoya99]

The shortm short version...

Their backcourt was better than ours. During the run, this is the play by play:

Hoyas make a pass; unusually quick Illini guard knocks it away. Hoya guard overcommits to Illini guard on perimeter; guard drives, help comes, dish to Illini big man for dunk/layup.

That's all.

[FLHoya]

MEGAFAN said:

This one drive by Bowman was perhaps his most agressive move of the game, and the commentators said that it was a "million dollar move with a 5 cent finish."

I wish sometimes I had the gift of coming up with such phrases while writing my recaps. That is, in a nutshell, what happened to Brandon tonight.

It was too forced, some of those are coming very late in the shot clock. You're gonna get a lot of "5-cent finishes" from everyone when you're up against the shot clock buzzer.

Case in point--multiple times in the second half in short shot clock situtations, a guard would receive a pretty good skip pass across the defense on the wing for a good enough open three. But they'd pump fake it, so the Illinois defender recovers. And then b/c the clock is winding, they have to jack it up anyway, although now they've got a hand in their face and aren't set.

It'll get better with time, and with opponents not ranked #1. But we've gotta get some better and more consistent movement and options in the offense to prevent too many five-cent finishes.