LINKS: Georgetown Faces Providence in BIG EAST Tournament

Unless Hoyas find defense at magic MSG, their season will be over!

Your Georgetown Hoyas (9-22, 2-18) finished another rough regular season on Saturday against St. John’s at Madison Square Garden and then watched the rest of the conference sort out the seeding for the BIG EAST Tournament. As the 10th seed, the Hoyas will face the familiar 7th seeded Providence Friars. Like all teams but one, the Friars swept the Hoyas but will put the old adage of “it’s hard to beat a team three times” to the test in the middle (6:30 PM) game on Wednesday night.

Here are the links:

Hoyas Fall in Regular Season Finale at St. John’s | GUHoyas

“You gotta give St. John’s a lot of credit. They made a lot of timely baskets – you play in a league like this here, you can’t afford the level of mistakes that we made. You know, we made a lot of mistakes coming down the stretch. But again, the way they’ve been playing – I think this is their fifth win in a row if I’m not mistaken – they’re playing their best basketball coming down the stretch. I think Coach Pitino has done a great job rallying his guys” …

The Hoyas have earned the 10th seed in the 2024 BIG EAST Men’s Basketball Tournament Presented by Jeep and will play the seventh-seeded Providence College Friars on Wednesday, March 13. Tipoff at Madison Square Garden is set for 6:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on FS1 with Tim Brando calling the play-by-play and Bill Raftery providing analysis. The radio call of Rich Chvotkin, in his 50th season as the Voice of the Hoyas, will be available locally and announced at a later time and his broadcast will be available nationally on the SiriusXM app.

Men’s Basketball Game Notes Vs. Georgetown – BIG EAST Tournament First Round | Friars.com

The Friars will play Georgetown on Wednesday, March 13 at 6:30 p.m. on FS1 in the First Round of the BIG EAST Tournament. Providence and Georgetown have met 83 times in school history, with all but two meetings coming since the formation of the BIG EAST Conference in 1979. The Hoyas lead the all-time series, 47-36. Georgetown won the first meeting, 77-51, in Providence in 1956, before the Friars took a rematch in Providence, 83-56, in 1959. The Hoyas hold a 25-12 advantage in Washington, D.C. In Providence, the Friars lead, 21-15. The teams have met nine times on a neutral court, with Georgetown holding a 7-2 advantage. One of those two Friar wins was in the 1987 NCAA Tournament. PC earned an 88-73 victory that sent the team to its second Final Four appearance. In the first meeting between the two teams this season, the Friars earned an 84-76 win on January 27, 2024 in Providence. In the most recent meeting between the two teams in Washington, the Friars defeated Georgetown, 71-58, on March 5, 2024.

Friars Vs. Georgetown In The BIG EAST Tournament: Wednesday’s game will mark the first meeting between the two teams in the BIG EAST Tournament since March 6, 2002 when the Georgetown earned a 68-67 win. The Friars have posted a 1-7 mark all-time versus the Hoyas in the BIG EAST Tournament. The Friars’ last win over Georgetown in the BIG EAST Tournament was a 74-64 victory over the Hoyas in the championship game on March 13, 1994.

St. John’s leans on clutch defense, outlasts Georgetown to preserve March Madness hopes | Rumble in the Garden

Epps scored 23 points and torched the Red Storm defense every time he drove inside. Rick Pitino made a crucial adjustment, switching R.J. Luis onto Epps for the final seven minutes of action. The sophomore wing, who regularly got into foul trouble and did not practice half of the time due to shin splints, was tasked to guard Georgetown’s best player.

In those final seven minutes, R.J. Luis allowed Jayden Epps to score zero points. Luis not only shut down Epps in the clutch, but he also single-handedly flipped the momentum in this game.

Holding a 65-62 lead with 5:30 remaining, Luis glided to the rim and banked in a floater. On the next possession, he stole Supreme Cook’s dribble hand-off pass and drew a shooting foul on the fastbreak on the other end.

Three takeaways and observations from St. John’s men’s basketball’s 86-78 win over Georgetown | Rumble in the Garden

With the Red Storm up by seven and just over four minutes to play, the big man for the Hoyas, Supreme Cook, had received a pass under the basket from a teammate. He went up for a dunk to the right of the paint. Soriano blocked it. Cook recovered the ball and went up again from the same position to the right of the rim. Soriano blocked the second attempt. Cook again recovered the ball. Soriano held his ground. As Cook tried to spin away, he stepped out of bounds.

The Johnnies pushed the ball upcourt. Dingle missed a three, but Chris Ledlum took down the rebound and laid the ball in. Cook fouled him, and Ledlum hit his free throw after a Georgetown timeout to give the Red Storm a ten-point lead.

The Hoyas made a couple of corner threes and went into a trap defense when a Johnnie ball handler crossed the midcourt line. The Johnnies broke it, drew fouls, and, over the last minute and forty seconds, went six for six from the free throw line, leading to a hard-fought 86-78 victory.

Loss to UConn leaves English, Friars scrambling to rebound for Big East tourney | Sun Chronicle

The sobering reality entered into Kim English’s chain of thought by halftime of the Providence College men’s basketball team’s Big East conference game against top-ranked and defending regular season champion Connecticut Saturday.

It left a harsh sting, with English knows that his Friars do not have enough talent, not enough depth and simply are not good enough to compete on a national stage.

At least not at the moment — without All-Big East First Team selection Bryce Hopkins, out since the third Big East game of the season due to a torn ACL; owning holdovers Jayden Pierre, Corey, Floyd, Rafael Castro who have had sub-par seasons to go with freshmen Donovan Santoro, Garwey Dual, Eli DeLaurier having little playing time.

“I don’t know if I can say this, but that we got caught with our pants down, — without the depth that we needed,” English said.

UConn’s Hurley responds to taunts from Providence fan: ‘You shouldn’t be running your mouth…Just get out of here. Just go.’

Post-game video showed Hurley, accompanied by police and security at Amica Mutual Pavilion, motioning towards one fan and shouting, “Look at this guy. Come here, come here, come here. You’ll get hurt.”

“You shouldn’t be yelling at me when you’re down 20,” he told reporters. “You should just wait for the game to be over and walk out. If he wasn’t barking at me, I wouldn’t have said anything to him. I had a similar thing at Butler, a fan was saying, ‘You suck, you guys haven’t won anything.’ And I told him, ‘I’ve got a national championship ring.’”

Hurley added: “You shouldn’t be running your mouth at that point of the game. Just get out of here. Just go.”

How the Friars Can Make a Big East Tournament Run | Providence Crier

Devin Carter is a unanimous Big East First Teamer. When you are reading this, Carter may be the Big East Player of the Year. If Providence is to make a Big East Tournament run, Devin Carter somehow needs to find another level, if that is at all possible. Carter has to carry this team for four games. He needs to play like a Top 10 pick that is a pro playing amongst inferior college players…

Josh Oduro Must Be The Robin to Carter’s Batman – Josh Oduro is the second piece of the Providence dynamic duo, garnering All Conference Honorable Mention honors. Carter and Oduro are averaging 35.5 points/game between them. If Providence gets to Saturday, Oduro and Carter are going to have to be scoring 45 points/game at The Garden.

We know now what we have in the rest of the roster, for better or worse. I’m done waiting for the consistent contributions of the role players. Carter and Oduro have to will this team to 4 victories pretty much all on their own.

Providence plays Georgetown in Big East Tournament | Washington Post

The Friars’ record in Big East play is 10-10, and their record is 9-2 in non-conference play. Providence is seventh in the Big East scoring 72.8 points while shooting 44.8% from the field.

The Hoyas are 2-18 in Big East play. Georgetown allows 78.0 points to opponents and has been outscored by 6.7 points per game.

Providence’s average of 8.4 made 3-pointers per game this season is only 0.8 more made shots on average than the 7.6 per game Georgetown allows. Georgetown averages 71.3 points per game, 2.4 more than the 68.9 Providence gives up.

Providence vs. Georgetown Predictions & Picks: Spread, Total – Big East Tournament | KEYC

Providence is 16-12-0 against the spread this season compared to Georgetown’s 11-17-0 ATS record. The Friars are 14-14-0 and the Hoyas are 16-12-0 in terms of hitting the over. Over the last 10 games, Providence is 5-5 against the spread and 5-5 overall while Georgetown has gone 3-7 against the spread and 1-9 overall.