Hoyas beat UNC in OT & Win East Regional Post-Game

[guhoyasfan36]

I love this team. Stuck in the middle of Big 12/ Missouri Valley country all I ever hear is about Kansas is sooo good this, The mvc should get 32 teams in that. We Are Georgetown. I keep spreading the word about how together we play and how good of a coach we are. People are paying attention now. This team is what college basketball is all about: classy, gutsy, and a positive influence. I could go on and on but there is only so much time....

[Saxifrage]

While watching the OT in real-time--hoarse with screaming in joy--I couldn’t understand exactly how Georgetown ran out to 14 points up after Summers’ dunk in transition. There were loose balls and misses and Green had a shot blocked, and none of it seemed to matter.

So I watched the replay in slow motion, and it turns out that most of it is due to Georgetown’s defense on the inside and North Carolina’s coldness on the outside.

The Hoyas’ offense, in other words, was very good during the OT, but not the perfection you might expect from the lopsided scoring. Georgetown had 10 possessions in OT, but 6 of them came in the final 1:38, with Summers’ dunk the only basket and the other 5 producing foul shots after deliberate fouls by North Carolina (all by Summers and Sapp, with Summers 4 for 4 and Sapp 3 for 5).

So Georgetown’s offense in OT essentially came down to the first 4 possessions, after which a scoreless North Carolina was in a deep hole. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Green miss, ball out of bounds on NC, Wallace scores on backdoor cut at 4:22. (G’town 1 for 2 shots.)
2. Loose ball, scramble, Summers stuffs at 3:57. (G’town 2 for 3.)
3. Green banks it in at 2:53. (G’town 3 for 4.)
4. Lost pass, Green blocked, Sapp misses 3-pt shot at 1:54. (G’town 3 for 6.)

That’s excellent basketball--6 points in 3 minutes, 50% shooting--but not the high-speed perfection I felt it to be while watching it live.

Turns out that what was high-speed perfection in OT was the defense. Hibbert, in particular. North Carolina got some second chances--preventing offensive rebounds has to become a higher priority for the Hoyas--but Georgetown shut down the interior and contested the low-percentage outside shots that the Tar Heels didn’t make.

Everybody will talk this week about the efficiency of the Hoyas’ offense, but it was defense that slaughtered the Tar Heels in overtime.

JB

[guhoyasfan36]

Just has it's been all season. I truly believe it's how effective we are on defense(limiting good look's, rebounding the ball) that gives us and edge. Of course it doesn't hurt that we shoot the ball well, but our defense really makes us the great team we are.

[FHillsNYHoya]

Poise. Never get flustered. Always in control.

No matter what's going on, our players ARE ALWAYS focused.

Period.

[hoyarooter]

Last night I told my dad that my biggest concern about this game was keeping UNC off of the offensive glass. That has been a weakness for us in many games this year, and it's one of UNC's strengths, as witnessed by the USC game.

For about the first 34 minutes of action today, I just kept banging my head on the table in frustration. At one point, my three year old daughter said, "Daddy, you're scaring me." But then, magically, it all turned around. From that point until the final minute of overtime, when it no longer mattered, UNC didn't get a single offensive rebound.

I'm still not quite sure how we managed to win this game, what with the rebounding deficit and enormous free throw discrepancy, but somehow we did, and it's on to Atlanta.

Hoya Freaking Saxa.

[rhman]

saxifrage said:

So Georgetown’s offense in OT essentially came down to the first 4 possessions, after which a scoreless North Carolina was in a deep hole. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Green miss, ball out of bounds on NC, Wallace scores on backdoor cut at 4:22. (G’town 1 for 2 shots.)
2. Loose ball, scramble, Summers stuffs at 3:57. (G’town 2 for 3.)
3. Green banks it in at 2:53. (G’town 3 for 4.)
4. Lost pass, Green blocked, Sapp misses 3-pt shot at 1:54. (G’town 3 for 6.)

That’s excellent basketball--6 points in 3 minutes, 50% shooting--but not the high-speed perfection I felt it to be while watching it live.

Thanks for the breakdown JB! On that loose ball, summers stuff play, when watching it live, I thought it was a lucky bounce that got it to Summers. But on the highlights, it looks to me like Roy actually taps it to him. If so, another nice play for Roy.

And that was a pass from Jeff... Packer and Nance got it right, but all the ESPN heads are calling it an airball.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

The Summers stuff with Tyler H on the ground was an amazing play. Summers was HUGE yesterday, and we needed every point he provided. Only once did I feel he made a bit of a freshman mistake by getting himself trapped in the middle of the lane in the first half. He also was 4/4 from the line. I'm looking forward to seeing him become a go to guy over the next couple years. And for being a force on the court, he sure was shy/humble at the press conference!

[Saxifrage]

Georgetown didn’t win; North Carolina lost--or so friends from down South have been calling to insist. The Hoyas played well down the stretch and through the overtime, they admit, but just look at the Tar Heels’ collapse: a stretch of 1 field goal in 14:37 minutes and 23 misses on their final 25 shots.

That sure does look like a collapse. But is it true that North Carolina’s failure decided the game more than Georgetown’s success did?

Some obvious things should be said here: Teams don’t collapse without a lot of help from their opponents. When good shooters start clanking their shots at the end of a game, it often comes from tiredness that playing against a well-coached team induces. A strong defense inside forces a team into low-percentage shots outside, and after a stretch of that outside game, even average shooting starts to look very cold.

That said, North Carolina didn’t manage even average shooting down the stretch and through the OT. They took 4 three-pt shots in the final six minutes of regulation--by my count, 3 of them good, reasonably open looks--and missed all 4. Along the way, they hit 1 of 3 strongly contested two-pt shots and had Hansbrough fouled twice for 4 free throws.

That’s 6 points from inside play for nine possessions over six minutes--which isn’t really too bad. The question is why they took and missed 4 three-pt shots during that same six-minute stretch. Part of the answer has to be Georgetown’s defense: The Tar Heels tried to get the ball inside on 3 of those 4 possessions and just couldn’t manage it. The other part of the answer is panic--induced by the fact that the Hoyas’ offense over the last six minutes was something close to perfection.

Look at it this way: At 6:03, Georgetown is still down 10. They score on eight of the next nine possessions, for 16 points in six minutes:

6:02 Green hits 1 of 2 free throws
5:37 Sapp layup
5:09 Green hook
4:19 Hibbert dunk
3:15 Wallace hits 2 of 2 free throws
2:43 Ewing lob from Green
2:13 Sapp layup
1:25 Green misses layup
0:35 Wallace three-pt. shot
(10th possession, with 2 seconds left: no shot)

Well, who wouldn’t panic? North Carolina was ahead through all of this until Wallace tied it at 0:35, but the feeling of the game had shifted entirely to Georgetown, and the Tar Heels were obviously burdened by it. North Carolina got no offensive rebounds during this stretch, and that was all: 10-point lead disappears, and the game heads into overtime with momentum all on Georgetown’s side.

Interestingly, in overtime, the reverse is true: Georgetown’s defense was better than its offense. The Hoyas did allow three offensive rebounds and turned the ball over once immediately after a defensive rebound. But they closed down the inside completely until Hansbrough was fouled at 0:31 after an offensive rebound, and they strongly contested the first 4 three-point shots North Carolina took.

Meanwhile, the Hoyas’ offense was good during the OT, but not perfection. From 1:38 on, North Carolina was deliberately fouling to stop the clock, which skews the statistics. But for the first three and a half minutes, Georgetown scored 6 points on 50% shooting--very good but not the jaw-dropping run with which the Hoyas ended regulation.

So, did Georgetown win or North Carolina lose? The Hoyas’ amazing 8-for-9 run at the end of the regular game makes it look as though Georgetown won, while the Tar Heels’ 4 missed three-pointers (three of them good looks) over that same stretch make it look as though North Carolina lost.

But the Tar Heels had reasons to miss those shots: tiredness, panic, and a Hoya zone defense that confused them at the end.

That’s enough to make it definitive: Georgetown won.

JB

[hoyatables]

Best line from the ESPN article:

Later, Ewing Sr. pulled out his cell phone. He said he was trying to call Jordan, his old nemesis, to rub it in.

"Yeah, I tried to call Michael," Ewing said, "but he wasn't accepting any of my calls."

[mapei]

Great analysis JB.

[cuvahoya]

Great analysis JB.
Ditto.
And, I would add, we had an intensity, a focus, and a belief in what we were doing, that Carolina just didn't have. I think they expected us to implode like USC & other teams had done before.

[ExcitableBoy]

One of my favorite plays was Ewing's board with 2 secs left. Not only was there no way he wasn't getting that baord, he also had the wherewithall to immediately call timeout. That board prevented us from losing ("Pyscho" T was definitely primed for a put back), but the timeout completed the momentum shift to us. In the end, it was UNC that escaped to overtime. We were the ones who technically had the chance (albiet remote) to win as time expired, not UNC--and we played like it in overtime.

[Nevada Hoya]

It seemed to me that UNC developed a complacency during the last half of the game. They had taken all the Hoyas could fire at them, they were getting the rebs, and they had the refs right where they wanted them. They were the team to make runs. With their deep bench the last five minutes was theirs, so what was there to worry about. They forgot or didn't know that the Hoyas never give up, and what started as a trickle, when it got down to five (their double digit cut in half), I think they started to get worried. By then all the momentum had shifted the Hoyas way. In OT it was just amazing how GU kept adding to the lead and UNC was not able to respond. The Hoyas had taken them out of their game, and there was nothing they could do at that point.

[Elvado]

Having finally calmed down, a serenity brought on at least in part by having my kids 4 and 18 months with me for the last five minutes of regulation, I am compelled to marvel at the poise, determination and courage of the Georgetown players and coaches.

On a day where it certainly looked like there were "forces" conspiring against us, our team never lost faith in each other, a faith no doubt born in common experience, hard work and the willingness to give of one's self for the greater good.

That faith begat resolve, a resolve tempered in the fires of competition, some of the fiercest of which no doubt occurs in practice and pick up games.

That resolve was manifest in effort and execution, both at their best when needed most.

It is no stretch of the imagination to say that this game was won long before it was ever played. It was won when this group of young men decided to become part of something infinitely bigger than themselves under the leadership of a bright and devoted coaching staff at America's finest University.

Thank you Hoyas for making me remember.

[mit0313]

If any of you have some time... Kornheiser on his radio show today was just lovin' the hoyas. Podcast can be downloaded here: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/wtwpradio/index.html