Recap: St. John's 59, Georgetown 56

Georgetown lost another overtime game tonight by the score 59-56 to the St. John's Redmen.

If you didn't suffer through, or managed to forget the last few Esherick years at Georgetown, tonight's game probably came as a bit of shock to you.

But for those who do remember, this game was in no way a surprise as the second semester swoon continues for the Hoyas. At this point little can be said about Our Men in Gray, as they seem incapable of stringing together consecutive strong outings. I'd guess that HoyaTalk is in full meltdown-mode for tonight and tomorrow - I'm planning on staying away for a couple of days myself.

With the loss, the Hoyas have effectively eliminated their chances of making the NCAA tournament, barring an appearance in the BET finals at minimum. Before then, they'll have to deal with the DePaul Blue Demons, currently without a win in Big East play.

Due to the vagaries of playing in The World's Most Famous Arena, no play-by-play is available for tonight's game, so a tempo-free box score is all you'll get.

Let's (sob) run the numbers:

.                      Offense                            Defense
.            1st Half  2nd + OT   Total         1st Half  2nd + OT   Total
Pace           34        27        60

Eff.          91.9      74.9      83.5           86.0      89.9      88.0

eFG%          53.7      37.5      46.1           50.0      31.7      40.0
TO%           20.8      21.0      20.9           35.6      21.0      28.3
OR%           13.3      14.3      13.9           35.7      47.6      42.9
FTA/FGA       11.1      54.2      31.4           20.0      40.0      30.9
FTM/FGA       7.4       29.2      17.6           16.0      36.7      27.3

Assist Rate   53.8      50.0      52.4           54.5      33.3      45.0
Block Rate    5.6       11.1      8.3            12.5      16.7      15.0
Steal Rate    5.9       6.0       6.0            20.8      15.0      17.9

2FG%          55.6      33.3      44.4           50.0      33.3      40.0
3FG%          33.3      33.3      33.3           33.3      16.7      26.7
FT%           66.7      53.8      56.3           80.0      91.7      88.2

The old bugaboo of rebounding came back to bite Georgetown one more time - the Hoyas collected only 5 of 36 of their own available missed shots, while St. John's snagged 15 of their 35 missed shots. Those 10 extra sustained possessions for the Redmen more than offset the Hoya's 19-14 turnover advantage.

In the end - that being the last 10 minutes of regulation and all of overtime - the Hoyas offense failed them. Per the AP recap, Georgetown lead 45-30 at 10:42 in the 2nd half, having allowed St. John's to score a single 2nd half point as part of a 14-1 run to open the Vesper half - G'town managed to get outscored 21-6 the rest of the way in regulation.

As has seemed to become a tradition around here in close losses, I'll point out the FT% in the game, compared with BE conference averages for the teams:

Team     FT%-Game  FT%-Conf.  FTM/FTA    Exp. FTM/FTA
G'town      56.3     69.9       9/16        11/16 
St. J's     88.2     63.9      15/17        11/17

It's really a useless point, like complaining about officiating, but if both teams had merely shot their conference average at the FT line, the Hoyas would have pulled out the game.


One final note - A. Freeman missed the game with a hip-pointer suffered in practice yesterday, also per the AP recap. His absence was likely not insignificant.