Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Recap: Pittsburgh 72, Georgetown 57

Before tip-off tonight, Vegas pegged Georgetown as a favorite, to the shock of most Hoya fans.  In what is becoming a disturbing annual tradition, Georgetown's Big East swoon continued tonight at the Verizon Center with a thorough beat-down at the hands of the Pittsburgh Panthers, 72-57. At this point - barring an amazing turnaround - even 9 wins in conference this year will be a stretch. 

As a preview for tonight's game, Tarik El-Bashir wrote an article that spent ten of the first eleven paragraphs discussing the major purported weakness for Georgetown during the swoon: offensive rebounding. The article seemed a bit strange to me, because outside of the West Virginia game, Georgetown has been about even or ahead on the boards:
Opponent        OR%    1-DR%    TR% 
Notre Dame      29.4    32.4    48.5
DePaul          38.2    43.9    47.2
St. John's      48.1    31.3    58.4
West Virginia   19.0    44.1    37.5
Now I don't want to give TEB too much grief for several reasons:
  • he used a real measure of rebounding (OReb%) in his article
  • Georgetown really did struggle getting offensive rebounds against WVU
  • with Pitt coming in leading the nation in off. rebounding, boards were likely to be the story line again
  • he did bring up turnovers (a very real problem for Georgetown) at the end of the article
But what really worries me about the article is that TEB may not have come up with the idea on his own.  It's possible he's been trolling the depths of HoyaTalk and came across some ill-founded bile (e.g. this beauty), but I'm more worried that the story came from the prompting of the coaching staff, which means that they don't have any idea what's really wrong with the team.

Georgetown is no better than a mediocre defensive team, especially in the Big East.  When they run into a smart team making tough shots inside and open looks from the arc, they're going to give up points.  But more importantly, the Hoyas are simply not making shots - looks that were dropping in OOC play are just not going down, and frustration leads to more misses and poor effort getting back in transition.  Add in missing 10 of 14 free throws in the Lift-off half and the game was mostly over at intermission.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Pittsburgh         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            29        31        60
 
Effic.         83.6     105.3      94.4       142.9      98.9     119.2  
 
eFG%           43.5      42.6      43.0        68.8      34.0      51.0  
TO%            10.5      19.1      14.9         7.0       9.6       8.3  
OR%            23.8      40.0      30.6        27.3      31.6      30.0  
FTA/FGA        60.9      40.7      50.0        45.8      80.0      63.3  

Assist Rate    33.3      20.0      26.3        64.3      75.0      68.2  
Block Rate      6.2      17.6      12.1         6.2       0.0       3.3  
Steal Rate      3.5       3.2       3.3         7.0       6.4       6.6  
 
2FG%           43.8      50.0      46.7        56.2      41.2      48.5  
3FG%           28.6      23.1      25.0        62.5      12.5      37.5  
FT%            28.6      90.9      56.0        72.7      70.0      71.0

Needless to say, after TEB's big build-up, rebounding was the least of Georgetown's troubles tonight.  The Hoyas yet against failed to make shots, but tonight they struggled from just about anywhere on the court, especially in the first half.

This was the second time in three games that Georgetown simply couldn't turn over their opponent, and outside of lowly South Florida, the Hoyas are the worst team in the league at forcing turnovers.  Right now, it's the worst component of a struggling defense.

I'm not sure if there's much else to be said about the game - I wouldn't take too much away from the results in the last 12 minutes of the Vesper half.  It was nice to see the team exert so much effort on defense to slow Pitt down, but the offense wasn't able to respond in kind.

Actually, one thing I did take away was when Georgetown did make that last desperate push to get back into the game, they simply couldn't string together consecutive makes from 3FG to put any sort of pressure on Pitt (think ODU game).  Indeed, they weren't even looking for the shot until it was truly dire times, and when Jason Clark took one with about 4 minutes to go, to try to get the lead to single digits, my only reaction was "what a bad idea."

Austin Freeman started to free-lance with about 10 minutes to go (a contested 3 and especially a driving baseline jumper early in the possession), and was sent to the bench soon after.  I think that was the right move by Coach Thompson, but it does get a bit frustrating knowing that the one Hoya capable of exploding offensively to lead the team back was sitting on the bench for a couple of minutes, as a senior, to learn a necessary lesson.


INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Thompson, Hollis       41   20.0   30.2    2.5      37   107.7    8.0      -5.9  
Wright, Chris          41   22.4  160.0   14.7      37    82.6    6.1      +7.9  
Freeman, Austin        52   19.6   98.4   10.0      53   122.5   13.0      -2.7  
Clark, Jason           41   17.0   67.5    4.7      41   102.9    8.4      -3.1  
Vaughn, Julian         45   29.8  105.2   14.1      44   115.4   10.2      +1.3  
Starks, Markel         17   17.6    0.0    0.0      19    98.5    3.7      -3.3  
Sanford, Vee            8    0.0    -      0.0      11   187.3    4.1      -4.1  
Sims, Henry            17   31.7  128.2    6.9      18   106.2    3.8      +2.1  
Benimon, Jerrelle      17   16.4   56.1    1.6      21   144.4    6.1      -3.5  
Lubick, Nate           31    8.4   70.4    1.8      29   100.4    5.8      -2.4  
TOTALS                 62          91.2   56.3      62   111.7   69.2     -12.8  

Pittsburgh            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Brown, Gilbert         50   26.2   94.0   12.3      49    95.3    9.3      +1.4  
Gibbs, Ashton          54   25.9  118.4   16.6      54   101.1   10.9      +4.0  
Wanamaker, Brad        49   22.1  126.1   13.6      50    76.0    7.6      +5.7  
Robinson, Nasir        42    8.6  146.3    5.3      43    89.8    7.7      -0.2  
McGhee, Gary           41   19.8   99.1    8.1      40    98.0    7.8      +0.2  
Woodall, Travon        34   20.4  137.0    9.5      32    66.7    4.3      +5.0  
Taylor, Dante          15   13.6  154.0    3.1      15    96.8    2.9      +0.7  
Patterson, Lamar        5   12.9  275.0    1.8       5    24.0    0.2      +1.6  
Zanna, Talib           14    7.1    0.0    0.0      15    84.6    2.5      -1.7  
Richardson, J.J         6    0.0    -      0.0       7    27.9    0.4      -0.4  
TOTALS                 62         116.6   70.3      62    86.7   53.8     +17.5

I think Chris Wright has turned into the favorite scapegoat during the slide, but he did everything he could tonight in the time he was on the court.  By the stats, he was actually the best player on the court tonight for either team, and the only Hoya able to play credible defense against a truly great offensive team in Pitt.  Unfortunately Chris also managed to pick up a couple of early fouls in the first half and sat on the bench while the Panthers blew the game open.  He also effectively ended the competitive portion of the game with a patented 1-on-3 drive into traffic with 2 minutes left.  At this point, I think you have to live with those mistakes and hope the rest of his game can make up for it.  It did tonight.

Henry Sims and Julian Vaughn had their struggles, but managed to play the Pitt front court to at worst a draw.  Sims especially looked (mostly) good in his limited time on the court.  Nate Lubick held his own on the defensive glass but couldn't do much offensively other than a 3FG from the corner.

Freeman, Clark and Hollis Thompson had poor, bad and miserable games shooting the ball, in that order.  Thompson in particular had some nice looks from behind the arc that simply wouldn't drop.


And now the Hoyas get ready to hit the road to the Garden State for a pair against Rutgers and Seton Hall.  I wish I were a bit more optimistic about the team gettng their shooting mojo back, but I just don't know.


HD BOX SCORE

Pittsburgh vs Georgetown
01/12/11 7:00 at Verizon Center
Final score: Pittsburgh 72, Georgetown 57

Pittsburgh              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Brown, Gilbert         31:10  + 0  12/49  2- 6  0- 3  8- 9  9/35  3/10  1/49  1/50  0/22  1/28  1/29   1
Gibbs, Ashton          34:42  + 9  22/62  1- 4  5-10  5- 6 14/43  2/12  0/54  0/54  0/27  0/30  2/33   0
Wanamaker, Brad        32:21  +10  14/57  4- 9  1- 1  3- 4 10/39  4/13  3/50  1/49  0/23  0/23  2/31   3
Robinson, Nasir        30:16  +12   8/51  4- 6  0- 0  0- 0  6/41  1/14  0/43  0/42  0/24  0/25  3/28   2
McGhee, Gary           25:00  + 1   8/41  3- 5  0- 0  2- 5  5/29  0/ 8  0/40  2/41  1/17  3/22  6/22   3
Woodall, Travon        20:15  +22   5/45  1- 1  0- 2  3- 4  3/23  5/13  0/32  0/34  0/16  1/13  5/24   3
Taylor, Dante          10:57  + 6   3/20  1- 1  0- 0  1- 2  1/12  0/ 6  0/15  0/15  0/10  1/ 6  1/11   4
Patterson, Lamar       03:37  + 9   0/11  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 7  0/ 4  0/ 5  0/ 5  0/ 3  1/ 3  1/ 4   0
Zanna, Talib           07:39  - 2   0/13  0- 0  0- 0  0- 1  0/ 8  0/ 4  0/15  0/14  0/ 5  0/ 6  3/ 7   2
Richardson, J.J        04:03  + 8   0/11  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 8  0/ 4  0/ 7  0/ 6  0/ 3  0/ 4  0/ 6   3
TOTALS                 40:00       72    16-33  6-16 22-31    49 15/22  4/62  6/62  1/30  9/30 25/36  21
.                                        0.485 0.375 0.710       0.682 0.065 0.097 0.033 0.300 0.694    

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Thompson, Hollis       23:59  + 3   2/42  1- 2  0- 5  0- 0  7/32  0/13  0/37  1/41  0/18  1/24  2/17   3
Wright, Chris          26:04  +11  14/46  2- 4  1- 2  7- 8  6/32  4/12  2/37  1/41  0/21  0/21  2/21   3
Freeman, Austin        34:44  -18  12/48  3- 8  2- 5  0- 1 13/45  1/12  0/53  0/52  0/31  0/35  2/27   2
Clark, Jason           25:10  -11   5/34  0- 0  1- 4  2- 4  4/32  0/10  0/41  2/41  0/23  1/27  3/25   3
Vaughn, Julian         29:19  - 9  13/42  5- 9  0- 0  3- 6  9/37  0/ 9  0/44  2/45  3/26  4/30  3/26   3
Starks, Markel         10:20  - 7   0/11  0- 2  0- 2  0- 0  4/15  0/ 4  0/19  1/17  0/ 8  0/12  0/ 7   3
Sanford, Vee           06:49  -15   0/ 6  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 6  0/ 2  0/11  0/ 8  0/ 5  0/ 5  0/ 3   2
Sims, Henry            10:41  - 6   6/15  2- 3  0- 0  2- 2  3/13  0/ 3  0/18  1/17  0/ 7  3/ 9  2/ 6   4
Benimon, Jerrelle      13:18  -17   2/12  1- 1  0- 0  0- 2  1/15  0/ 3  0/21  1/17  1/12  0/14  1/14   1
Lubick, Nate           19:36  - 6   3/29  0- 1  1- 2  0- 2  3/23  0/ 8  0/29  1/31  0/14  0/18  5/14   2
TOTALS                 40:00       57    14-30  5-20 14-25    50  5/19  2/62 10/62  4/33 11/36 21/30  26
.                                        0.467 0.250 0.560       0.263 0.032 0.161 0.121 0.306 0.700    

Efficiency: Pittsburgh 1.161, Georgetown 0.919
eFG%: Pittsburgh 0.510, Georgetown 0.430
Substitutions: Pittsburgh 27, Georgetown 49

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Pittsburgh 1-1, Georgetown 0-0
Layups/Tips: Pittsburgh 9-13, Georgetown 11-18
Jumpers: Pittsburgh 6-19, Georgetown 3-12

Fast break pts (% FG pts): Pittsburgh 6 (12.0), Georgetown 4 (9.3)
Pts (eff.) after steal: Pittsburgh 6 (150.0), Georgetown 4 (200.0)
Seconds per poss: Pittsburgh 20.4, Georgetown 18.3


No comments:

Post a Comment