POUND THE PAINT: Hoyas Hound UMBC Retrievers to 86-62 Victory

Georgetown shows solid defense even on short rest

Your Georgetown Hoyas (7-1) hounded the UMBC Retrievers (5-5) in the second half and cruised to a 86-62 victory on Monday night. Coming off only two days of rest, Georgetown’s three-point shooting (3-20) may have shown signs of wear, but a surprisingly stalwart defense held UMBC to 11-33 FGs (1-11 3PT) in the second half and caused 21 turnovers overall. With the three ball not going down, Thomas Sorber did yeoman’s work down low with 23 points (6-7 FGs, 11-12 FTs) and 8 rebounds.

The first half did not start out great for Georgetown, with the Retrievers shooting well from three early on. Their luck from the arc would not last.

It still feels weird writing this, but Georgetown turned up the defense and started getting some transition buckets. The Hoyas went on a 19-5 run but UMBC battled back with an 11-1 run to make the score 37-35 with 1:13 left in the half. Georgetown finished the half with two layups to lead 41-35 at halftime.

UMBC only had three three-pointers in the half but they were all within the first 5 minutes and enough to caused clenched jaws of Hoyas fans everywhere. They missed the next four attempts over the half. Georgetown was 1-8 in the half from three with Mack hitting the only one.

The Hoyas did it in the first half—and eventually all game—with points in the paint, 28-18, and fastbreak points, 9-5. UMBC had more rebounds, 21-16 (18-12 defense) but only because GU had 7 more field goal attempts (17-37 vs. 14-30). The Retrievers had 12 turnovers while the Hoyas only had two in the half. Georgetown had 7 steals before intermission.

But the Hoya defense did not stop there. They found another gear.

With about 7:30 left in the game, Georgetown rode a 6-minute 19-4 run to a 70-47 lead and held UMBC to 28.8% shooting (6-21) for the latter half. The Retrievers missed five three-point attempts. The Hoyas led on rebounds 14-6. UMBC had not attempted a free throw in the second half up until that point and GU only had two fouls. No matter who the opponent is, that smells like good defense.

Offensively during that stretch, Sorber made two buckets and was 7-8 on free throws and Epps made two threes. Georgetown found 7 second-chance points and 6 points off of turnovers.

From there, it was much of the same for UMBC, shooting 29% and hitting only one more three before the media timeout at 2:42, GU leading 84-56. The Hoyas had 24 points in the paint and only allowed two free throws on three personal fouls before a bit of garbage time.

The Retrievers scored 8 more points and Caleb Williams hit a jumper to get to the 86-62 final score. Neither team shot well from beyond the arc in the second half with GU making 2-12 and UMBC connecting on only 1-11.

Thomas Sorber lead for Georgetown with 23 points on 6-7 shooting from the field and 11 for 12 on the free-throw line. He was just shy of another double-double with only 8 rebounds. Jayden Epps poured in 16 points on 7-15 shooting from the field, but was only 2-7 from beyond the arc (4 assists).

Malik Mack scored 13 points on 6-12 shooting from the field and 1-3 for three (5 assists). Drew Fielder had 8 points (3-9, 9 rebs) and Micah Peavy (3-11) had 7 points and 5 assists.

Off the bench, Caleb Williams (10 points) and Jordan Burke (9 points) each shot 4-5 field goals.

For UMBC, Josh Odunowo led with 18 points (7-13 FGs) and Marcus Banks had 16 points (6-13 FGs, 2-7 3PT). The team shot 39.7% for the game (25-63) and 22.2% from three (4-18).

It wasn’t all sunshine for Georgetown as they shot 3-20 from three (15%) and 30-48 (62.5%) from two. They needed that 52-36 points-in-the-paint margin. Getting to the line 22 times (17-22 vs 8-9) also helped.

Overall, Georgetown has put together five nice performances since that early loss to Notre Dame. Since then, the Hoyas look solid and have been able to clamp down the defense to convert turnovers into positive transition attacks. They had five dunks tonight and six on Saturday.

Three-point shooting is going to have to get a whole lot better before conference competition heats up in late December, but so far fans have seen a lot of promising efforts especially from Thomas Sorber.

There is no doubt that Epps, Peavy, and Mack will have opportunities to take the reins of some games down the line, but when play flows through Sorber, the Hoyas look like a competitor. It’s nice to have a dependable big man.

At this point, it’s safe to say that Sorber has great hands, footwork, and vision. He moves well on defense and communicates with his teammates. He has nice timing on blocks and brings a quiet confidence to the floor. His steady play lifts the ceiling for this team pretty high and with the injury to Halaifonua, Sorber’s minutes and health may be even more important to the success of the season.

Georgetown travels to Morgantown on Friday to face West Virginia at 7PM on ESPN2. A few short weeks ago, many fans may have written this next game off, however, after these last few games, fans are now beginning to believe that there may in fact be something different about Georgetown‘s defense this year and they may have a shot to make some noise on the road in these next couple games.