One last look at the Texas game

With tip-off for the Towson game in just a couple of hours, I'd be remiss if I didn't pass along a brief recap that Ray Floriani sent my way.

NEW YORK CITY – A few thoughts and notes assembled watching Georgetown post an excellent win over Texas in the Jimmy V…

Impressed with Nate Lubick. A versatile player, Lubick is looking more comfortable each time out. He can use his size inside and also set a screen or make the pass out of the high post. The first two years chalk up to the learning process, Lubick is starting to come into his own.

Another player of note you cannot help but be impressed with is Otto Porter. Simply said Porter is extremely efficient and effective. He does not force the issue on either end of the floor.

Great start for the Hoyas, 6-1 and the sole setback an overtime loss to top-ranked Indiana. Naturally, Coach John Thompson III is pleased, but feels the team is still learning and improving on a daily basis. Remember, there is not a senior on this Georgetown roster.

Mikael Hopkins in the estimation of  JTIII had a sub-par night. Hopkins, a 10.7 ppg scorer, scored 1 point in nine minutes. Thompson cautioned that will happen given he is one of those young players (a 6-9 sophomore) assimilating a lot day-to-day in practice. Thompson did add, “he (Hopkins) struggled today. But we did have guys step up in his place. We need Mikael to play well for us.”

Thought it was interesting the media notes pointed out Texas and Georgetown had not met since 1972. Texas won that game and that was the last season before John Thompson took over the coaching reins. Running the club back then was Jack Magee. Surprising these two have not met for four decades. Both are high profile programs you would figure would meet in a pre-season or post-season tournament. Didn’t happen.

Good representation of Georgetown fans were out for the Garden game. Lubick noted how the Garden felt comfortable for the Hoyas because they play the Big East Tournament and St. John’s at the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’. Lubick also mentioned the previously mentioned fan support as a plus.

Ran into former Georgetown assistant Bill Stein who later served as Athletic Director at St. Peter’s. Stein was taking in the St. Peter’s-Seton Hall meeting at the Prudential Center. Stein noted coach John Thompson III is not only an excellent coach from a technical/tactical sense but also “does a great job of relating to and working so well with his players.” JTIII has mastered the delicate balance of being in control and a player’s coach.

Good move to show some pressure and change up defenses a few times in the Texas game. The Longhorns are young and turnover prone. Changing the defenses kept them from really establishing any type of a comfort zone on offense. Hoyas led 9-0 after the first four minutes and were basically in control the entire night.

Fouling up three, under seven seconds left

After Georgetown's 5-point win over Seton Hall on Tuesday, there was a bit of doom-and-gloom here and elsewhere about the Hoyas.  Ray Floriani, erstwhile contributor here and still blogging elsewhere, made it to the game, and sent along this missive.

NEWARK, NJ - A confession is in order. I had an officiating assignment of two high school games in Jersey City and got to the Rock at the half. The trip was only eight miles and at that time, there was little traffic to deal with. Our last high school game they turned the heat down, so media room coffee at the Rock hit the spot. At any rate…

Impressed with…Georgetown poise. You lose a seven point halftime lead and are now down seven with twelve to play as the home team is in the midst of a 21-7 run; many would have panicked. During the Seton Hall rally the Hoyas stayed together. No finger pointing or the like. They just maintained focus until they could get out of the slump. On the bench coach John Thompson III also maintained his cool. The only outburst of displeasure would be off a careless unforced turnover [ed. note: that was Nate Lubick's behind-the-back pass in the general direction of Julian Vaughn].

Also impressed with Austin Freeman. How could one not be? He had 28 points, and hit 10 of 13 from the floor including a few big ones at crunch time. Even Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard said “Freeman is fun to watch.” Just not too much fun to try and stop.

Correct me if I’m wrong…But I would like to see a few more touches for Julian Vaughn. He has size and a low post presence. Vaughn is attempting 16% of the Hoya shots in conference play. Even utilizing him as a passer wouldn’t hurt. Vaughn has 11 assists, third on the Hoyas in Big East play. More touches and shots could mean more trips to the line where he is a 72% shooter. As noted, just a thought.

Rebounding . . . Read through this site some links and essays on Georgetown rebounding. In raw numbers the Hoyas were 36-35 in favor. The OREB percentage saw them trail the Hall 42-40%. That was largely due to a better second half. The first 20 minutes they had a 41-27% OREB pct deficit, but still led by seven. A 67% eFG mark during that time was largely responsible.

Coach Thompson mentioned in one piece that rebounding was not just on the big men. The guards contributed as Chris Wright and Jason Clark both had 6 (tied with Vaughn for the team lead on the game) and Freeman had 5.

Ray also sent along a link to another post he had on the game, discussing Coach Thompson's late game strategy of fouling when up by three and time for probably one decent look from deep by Seton Hall (link).

Recap: Georgetown 91, Syracuse 84

Georgetown rode the incredibly efficient offensive performances of Chris Wright, Greg Monroe and Jason Clark to an upset of top-seed Syracuse at the Big East tournament today.  This was the first win by the JTIII-led Hoyas against Syracuse away from the Verizon Center.

The Hoyas will take on the Marquette Golden Eagles, who pulled a mild upset of Villanova, tomorrow evening in the semi-finals.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Visitor                         Home      
.            Georgetown                      Syracuse         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            35        39        74

Effic.        106.3     137.2     123.2       114.9     111.8     113.7  
 
eFG%           53.2      75.0      63.2        70.4      57.8      63.6  
TO%            17.2      15.2      16.2        31.6      15.2      23.0  
OR%            25.0      38.5      31.0        41.7      18.8      28.6  
FT Rate        12.9      92.3      49.1        14.8      25.0      20.3  
 
Assist Rate    66.7      66.7      66.7        62.5      56.2      59.4  
Block Rate      0.0       4.3       2.6        20.0       0.0      10.3  
Steal Rate     20.1      15.2      17.6        14.4      12.7      13.5  
 
2FG%           60.0      78.9      69.2        62.5      47.8      53.8  
3FG%           27.3      42.9      33.3        54.5      55.6      55.0  
FT%           100.0      62.5      67.9        50.0      87.5      75.0

The big picture number today is the final offensive efficiency for Georgetown today.  The Hoyas finished the game averaging over 1.2 points per possession.  In their first 31 games of the season, the Syracuse Orange had only thrice allowed a team to score more than 1.1 points per possession:  Louisville (2 losses) and Providence (a win).

Because of the vaunted 2-3 zone, Syracuse normally forces teams to shoot a lot of outside shots:  opponents attempt 3FGs as 41% of all shots from the floor, which is the 10th highest rate against in Div-I.  Today, Georgetown resisted that temptation, as they shot 18 3FGAs on a total of 58 shot attempts [= 31%], just about at their season average [30%].

Instead, the Hoyas pounded it inside.  A lot.  If you've been paying attention around here, you may have noticed a post earlier this week breaking out each player's shot selection over the past three months of the season.  As a team, the Hoyas take 67% of their 2-pt shots as either dunks, layups or tip-ins - a fantastic percentage.  In today's game, Georgetown was even better, taking 82% of the shots from in close.

Those shots came from a variety of ways, either on the secondary break, post moves from Greg Monroe or off touch passes to a guard running the baseline (especially Chris Wright in the 1st half, but all the guards in the 2nd half).  And a lot of them went in - 67% of them, in fact.  That's actually not much higher than the Hoyas have averaged on layups and tips all season (61%).

This wasn't a fluke offensive performance, but rather a team successfully running a game strategy.  Of course, cutting the turnover rate down about four percentage points from the conference season average certainly helped by adding 4 possessions with a scoring attempt.


The biggest non-Georgetown story of the game was the shocking injury to Arinze Onuaku late in the game.  The extent of his knee injury should become known on Friday, but hopefully it just looked much worse than it was.  

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Wright, Chris          72   23.4  145.7   24.5      72   107.4   15.5      +7.8  
Monroe, Greg           72   17.3  146.3   18.2      72    98.2   14.1      +5.0  
Freeman, Austin        67   23.1  111.3   17.2      68   103.4   14.1      +2.2  
Clark, Jason           65   18.6  136.5   16.5      67   115.8   15.5      +1.8  
Vaughn, Julian         16   11.8   94.0    1.8      18   180.6    6.5      -3.2  
Thompson, Hollis       48   20.0   95.2    9.1      48    89.8    8.6      +0.5  
Sanford, Vee            7   25.0   85.7    1.5       7    90.0    1.3      +0.1  
Benimon, Jerrelle      14   16.7   28.6    0.7      13   108.5    2.8      -2.0  
Sims, Henry             4    0.0    -      0.0       5   165.3    1.7      -1.7  
TOTALS                 73         123.7   89.6      74   108.1   80.0     +10.5  

Syracuse              Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
JACKSON, Rick          60   17.9   59.7    6.4      59   122.2   14.4      -7.4  
RAUTINS, Andy          74   19.8  117.3   17.2      73   126.7   18.5      -1.4  
JOHNSON, Wes           69   23.8  126.1   20.7      68   117.2   15.9      +3.1  
ONUAKU, Arinze         30    9.6  105.7    3.1      27   100.8    5.4      -1.1  
TRICHE, Brandon        32   14.6   82.1    3.8      31    94.3    5.8      -1.3  
JARDINE, Scoop         47   29.5  117.5   16.3      48   129.7   12.4      +1.1  
JOSEPH, Kris           58   17.5  155.9   15.9      59   126.4   14.9      +2.0  
TOTALS                 74         113.5   83.3      73   119.9   87.5      -4.4 

While for long stretches of the game it looked like the Wright and Monroe show, neither player used as many as 25% of available possessions, with Monroe actually using less than 20%.

Chris Wright had a great shooting game today - those driving layups that we talked about yesterday were dropping for him.  His shot selection (twice as many 2FGAs as 3FGs) was outstanding and appropriate.  He also was second on the team with 6 rebounds (5 defensive), as his motor looked to be running about one gear faster than everyone else out there.

Greg Monroe may still be receiving complaints for his passivity, but he willingly drew defenders to facilitate open looks for his teammates.  A point I only hear Doug Gottlieb mention afterward was that Monroe's defense against the Syracuse bigs was also a key aspect of the game.  The net points tracker brings it out a bit, but Monroe did a great job denying Onuaku touches and harassing Jackson all game.

If someone's seen Austin Freeman's outside shooting touch, please return it to MSG immediately.  Freeman is now 0-6 on 3FG in the Big East tournament.  Today he recognized what was working and what wasn't, and went hard to the basket to get layups and FTs.  He'll need to start making some outside shots for the Hoyas to continue to advance.

Jason Clark has been doing his best to cover for his teammate behind the arc:  his 3/7 3FG shooting today brings him up to 7/13 for the tourney, as it appears that his late-season shooting slump [9/31 in the seven games prior to this week] is over.  His excellent play so far is the biggest difference over the past few weeks, and if the announcers can get his name correct, I hope they acknowledge him a bit more.

Julian Vaughn didn't see a lot of playing time today, as he struggled defensively and was often replaced by Hollis Thompson.  Thompson was solid for a freshman in his first BET, until late in the game at the FT line where he missed 4 consecutive attempts.  At one point Austin Freeman clearly suggested that he "MAKE THEM."

Vee Sanford continues to see playing time with Freeman back, and continues to be a plus off the bench - his ability to be at least a modest scoring threat allows the offense to continue to run seamlessly when he's in (as opposed to Benimon and Sims).

HD BOX SCORE

Georgetown vs Syracuse
3/11/10 12:00 pm at New York, NY/MSG
Final score: Georgetown 91, Syracuse 84

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Wright, Chris          38:48  + 9  27/89  8-11  2- 5  5- 6 16/57  6/22  2/72  3/72  0/36  1/30  5/27   2
Monroe, Greg           38:26  + 6  17/88  6- 9  0- 0  5- 8  9/56  7/26  4/72  2/72  1/37  1/29  9/27   3
Freeman, Austin        36:48  +10  16/84  6-11  0- 3  4- 4 14/52  3/24  3/68  1/67  0/37  2/27  2/27   2
Clark, Jason           36:44  + 4  17/83  3- 4  3- 7  2- 3 11/53  4/25  2/67  1/65  0/37  2/27  1/25   0
Vaughn, Julian         11:53  -11   4/19  2- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/17  0/ 6  0/18  1/16  0/ 8  0/ 9  0/ 2   2
Thompson, Hollis       23:21  +18   8/66  1- 1  1- 3  3- 7  4/36  0/19  3/48  1/48  0/28  3/19  2/20   2
Sanford, Vee           03:36  + 3   2/ 8  1- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 5  1/ 2  0/ 7  1/ 7  0/ 2  0/ 2  0/ 4   0
Benimon, Jerrelle      07:44  + 0   0/14  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/10  1/ 6  0/13  1/14  0/ 6  0/ 5  0/ 5   2
Sims, Henry            02:40  - 4   0/ 4  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 4  0/ 2  0/ 5  0/ 4  0/ 4  0/ 2  0/ 3   0
TOTALS                 40:00       91    27-40  6-18 19-28    58 22/33 14/74 11/73  1/39  9/30 20/28  13
.                                        0.675 0.333 0.679       0.667 0.189 0.151 0.026 0.300 0.714    

Syracuse                Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
JACKSON, Rick          33:02  -14   4/65  2- 6  0- 0  0- 0  6/49  2/24  2/59  5/60  2/33  2/23  3/21   4
RAUTINS, Andy          40:00  - 7  14/84  1- 1  4- 9  0- 0 10/59 11/27  0/73  5/74  0/40  1/28  3/30   1
JOHNSON, Wes           38:14  - 6  24/79  7-12  3- 5  1- 2 17/55  1/20  3/68  3/69  2/37  2/26  5/28   5
ONUAKU, Arinze         17:02  + 6   3/37  1- 2  0- 0  1- 2  2/22  1/12  1/27  0/30  1/18  0/10  3/13   2
TRICHE, Brandon        18:07  + 4   2/39  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/26  3/14  3/31  2/32  0/19  0/11  1/11   2
JARDINE, Scoop         23:44  -12  19/50  4- 9  2- 3  5- 6 12/37  1/13  0/48  2/47  0/24  0/19  2/22   3
JOSEPH, Kris           29:51  - 6  18/66  5- 7  2- 3  2- 2 10/47  0/18  0/59  0/58  0/29  2/23  3/25   4
TOTALS                 40:00       84    21-39 11-20  9-12    59 19/32  9/73 17/74  5/40  8/28 21/30  21
.                                        0.538 0.550 0.750       0.594 0.123 0.230 0.125 0.286 0.700    

Efficiency: Georgetown 1.247, Syracuse 1.135
eFG%: Georgetown 0.621, Syracuse 0.636
Substitutions: Georgetown 21, Syracuse 24

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Georgetown 0-0, Syracuse 1-1
Layups/Tips: Georgetown 22-33, Syracuse 17-29
Jumpers: Georgetown 5-7, Syracuse 3-9

Fast break pts (% FG pts): Georgetown 4 (5.6), Syracuse 7 (9.3)
Pts (eff.) after steal: Georgetown 23 (164.3), Syracuse 14 (155.6)
Seconds per poss: Georgetown 18.8, Syracuse 13.9

Occasional contributor Ray Floriani was at the game, and sent along his thoughts:

NEW YORK CITY - The offensive numbers were impressive. Georgetown had a 125 OE while Syracuse checked in at 114. The deciding factor was turnovers. The pace was 74 possessions as Syracuse will run. Georgetown is known for its Princeton (variation) offense but will push if the opportunity arises, especially off turnovers. Georgetown had an 11-9 scoring edge off fast breaks. Hoyas cared for the ball with a 16% rate while Syracuse was too high at 23%.

Georgetown missed a number of free throws in the stretch but still had a significant 50-20 edge in free throw rate. A look at three point attempts shows why. The Orange took 39% of their attempts beyond the arc, Georgetown took only 20%. In late game Syracuse was in a fouling mode which inflates the FT rate, but the Hoyas simply did a better job attacking the basket all game.

John Thompson III noted after beating a good South Florida team on Wednesday, his club is physically and emotionally at their best right now. It showed against Syracuse. The Hoyas are very loose yet playing hungry, poised to make a significant tourney run.

Coach Thompson also commented on Austin Freeman’s diabetes noting it hasn’t altered his stamina or performance. The changes are in his [Freeman’s] regular life as Thompson noted and in practice and games there is always someone there to monitor his condition.

Greg Monroe. At times I feel he should do more. The Hoya big man did go for 15 points 10 boards 7 assists, a nice complete game. Monroe doesn’t force the issue nor do they force it into him on offense. Thompson utilized his center's passing skills out of the mid- and high-post and when the time came he got the looks inside and utilized his nice baseline move on the blocks. His numbers and performance today were just fine.

Friday night is for the Big East Jesuit title, Georgetown-Marquette. Fully expect this to go to the wire.

-----------

Stats pages will be updated after the Big East tournament.

Recap: Georgetown 72, Butler 65

Well, as often is the case with games played at Madison Square Garden, stats for the game are extremely limited.  Right now the Georgetown Athletic Dept. only has a final box score available, but no play-by-play and no stats by half.

I'll just post what I can tonight, and hope Mex Carey or someone else in Athletics can get better stats posted.

One bit of good news is that occasional contributor Ray Floriani was at the game, and sent along his recap, which I've attached under the stats.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                                      Visitor   
.            Georgetown                                Butler         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace           33        38        71

Eff.         118.1      86.2     100.9           93.9      88.8      91.1

eFG%          62.0      39.6      51.0           44.6      31.8      37.7
TO%           27.3      31.3      29.4           15.1      18.3      16.8
OR%           45.5      36.8      40.0           16.7      36.0      27.9
FTA/FGA       36.0      79.2      57.1           25.0      45.5      36.1
FTM/FGA       32.0      58.3      44.9           21.4      39.4      31.1

Assist Rate   28.7      75.0      45.5           40.0      77.8      57.9
Block Rate    20.0      26.1      23.7           5.9       10.5      8.3
Steal Rate    9.1       13.1      11.2           18.2      15.7      16.8

2FG%          64.7      27.8      45.7           33.3      26.1      28.9
3FG%          37.5      50.0      42.9           38.5      30.0      34.8
FT%           88.9      73.7      78.6           85.7      86.7      86.4

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS - estimated

Georgetown            Off       %           Individ     Def             Individ             
Player                Poss    Poss   ORtg  Pts Prod     Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Freeman, Austin        50     19.6  145.5     9.7        50     90.4      9.0       +3.0    
Wright, Chris          66     19.7   70.5    12.9        66     91.0     11.9       -0.8    
Monroe, Greg           67     30.2  114.2    20.3        67     86.9     11.7       +7.1    
Clark, Jason           66     13.8  105.3     9.1        66     97.7     12.8       -1.5    
Vaughn, Julian         30     31.8   50.2     9.6        30     92.8      5.6       +0.0    
Thompson, Hollis       44      6.5  156.8     2.9        44    108.0      9.6       -2.7    
Sims, Henry            21     10.3   20.2     2.2        21     92.9      4.0       -1.7    
Sanford, Vee            2     49.3  210.5     0.9         2      0.0     -0.1       +1.5    
Benimon, Jerrelle      12     20.4   91.4     1.8        12     94.9      1.7       +0.0    
TOTALS                 71           100.9    69.5        65     91.1     66.2       +4.9

Official Basketball Box Score
Butler vs Georgetown
12/08/09 7 p.m. at Madison Square Garden, New York, N.Y.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VISITORS: Butler 6-3
                          TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
01 MACK, Shelvin....... *  5-14   1-5    1-1    2  3  5   3  12  2  4  0  2  29
05 NORED, Ronald....... *  0-1    0-0    2-3    2  2  4   4   2  2  2  0  3  29
20 HAYWARD, Gordon..... *  7-19   4-11   6-6    3  5  8   2  24  2  0  2  1  39
23 VEASLEY, Willie..... *  2-5    0-2    3-4    1  1  2   0   7  1  4  0  0  25
54 HOWARD, Matt........ *  1-9    0-0    7-8    1  5  6   5   9  1  0  1  2  25
02 VANZANT, Shawn......    0-2    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  1  0  0  1  13
03 HAHN, Zach..........    4-7    3-5    0-0    0  0  0   3  11  2  0  0  2  22
14 RODGERS, Nick.......    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  0  0  0  0   1
22 LEIENDECKER, Grant..    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   1   0  0  0  0  1   3
24 JUKES, Avery........    0-3    0-0    0-0    1  0  1   5   0  0  1  0  0   6
32 BUTCHER, Garrett....    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   1   0  0  0  0  0   4
44 SMITH, Andrew.......    0-1    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  0  0  0  0   4
   TEAM................                         2  2  4             1
   Totals..............   19-61   8-23  19-22  12 18 30  24  65 11 12  3 12 200


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOME TEAM: Georgetown 7-0
                          TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
04 Wright, Chris....... *  0-4    0-0    7-8    1  3  4   2   7  4  6  1  3  37
10 Monroe, Greg........ *  9-20   0-1    6-10   4 11 15   2  24  2  1  2  1  38
15 Freeman, Austin..... *  5-7    4-5    4-4    1  3  4   4  18  1  3  0  2  28
21 Clark, Jason........ *  3-8    1-4    2-2    2  3  5   1   9  2  2  0  1  37
22 Vaughn, Julian...... *  2-6    0-1    0-0    2  3  5   4   4  1  5  3  0  17
01 Thompson, Hollis....    2-3    1-2    1-2    0  0  0   4   6  0  0  2  0  25
11 Sanford, Vee........    0-0    0-0    2-2    0  0  0   0   2  0  0  0  1   1
20 Benimon, Jerrelle...    1-1    0-0    0-0    1  2  3   1   2  0  1  0  0   5
30 Sims, Henry.........    0-0    0-0    0-0    1  3  4   4   0  0  2  1  0  12
   TEAM................                            3  3             1
   Totals..............   22-49   6-13  22-28  12 31 43  22  72 10 21  9  8 200

-----------------------------

From Ray Floriani


NEW YORK CITY - Georgetown passed its first major test of the season with a 72-65 victory over Butler in the opener of the Jimmy V Classic. Entering the Madison Square Garden meeting both clubs were playing at a mid-60s pace. Butler enter with an offensive efficiency of 106 while the Hoyas checked in at 112. The Hoya defense has been noteworthy to date. Rather than check points allowed, the defensive efficiency was tabulated and it is a resounding 83.

Numbers for tonight…

First Half: Georgetown 39, Butler 31

Team          Poss        ORating
Butler         32           97
Georgetown     33          118

Excellent offensive showing by the Hoyas largely due to a 60% eFG pct. A little too generous on the defensive end. A 27% turnover rate for the Hoyas didn’t help.

Final:  Georgetown 72, Butler 65

Team          Poss        ORating
Butler         39            87
Georgetown     38            87

Shooting cures ills. Hoyas finished with a 51% eFG pct. Good thing as the turnover rate was a horrendous 30%. Hoyas also had a 40%-28% edge in off. rebounding percentage.


Added observations:

• Greg Monroe barely had a touch the first ten minutes but in the second half his touches increased, especially down the stretch. Monroe enjoyed a 24 point 15 rebound night. Coach John Thompson III tried to play off the performance or any hint that Monroe SHOULD see a fair amount of touches by saying, “It is a team effort. Chris Wright didn’t score much [7 points], but ran the team. A lot of guys contributed.” JTIII also noted that statistics are not important, getting the win is. Agreed but there are times the ball should go low and Monroe should take his man. The NBA scouts in attendance shared this opinion.

• Georgetown enjoyed a 17 point lead at one point in the second half. In a game of runs, Butler was able to build theirs on a timely trey or worse a Georgetown turnover. There were a succession of miscues (21 total) but the Hoyas weathered them and found the way to win.

• Impressed with Austin Freeman. He scores 18 points and was able to get inside or do damage downtown (4 of 5 beyond the arc).

• Very impressed with the defensive job done on Matt Howard. The 6'-8" Howard is the Horizon League Pre-Season Player of the Year choice. He scored 9 points and was 1 of 7 from the floor. “Matt (Howard) played hard but was frustrated tonight,” said Butler coach Brad Stevens. “We missed shots around the basket but they (Georgetown) bothered us.”

• Gordon Hayward had a good night for Butler. Hayward tied Monroe for scoring honors (24 points) and pulled down a team high 8 rebounds.

• Georgetown’s next game is Saturday at Washington. Thompson III wanted these games scheduled with a purpose in mind. “We wanted to get ready for a conference-like week,“ he said. “Two strong teams: one Tuesday, one Saturday. If you lose Tuesday you realize you can bounce back. If you win (Tuesday) you don’t get too excited because you have a tough one to prepare for on Saturday.“

• Stevens was extremely impressed with Georgetown. “They are good,” the Butler mentor praised. “Their system is good and they are well coached. [Greg] Monroe is a player but he has other good players around him.”

Guest blogger: Ray Floriani's pregame notes on ND

We're setting a breath-taking pace here on H.P., as this marks the fifth post in five days to start the new year. Don't expect us to keep it up!

Ray Floriani sent along a short note ahead of tonight's game with Notre Dame with some observations of St. John's upset of the Irish on Saturday.

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – I covered Notre Dame-St. John’s at the Garden on Saturday and have a few notes on the Hoyas’ opposition tonight.

Perimeter oriented. The Irish saw 27% of their field goal attempts come from beyond the arc. They shot 4 of 17 from downtown, thanks to good, solid perimeter defense by the Red Storm. Paris Horne did a nice job on ND’s Kyle McAlarney, forcing him into a 10 point afternoon (4 of 12 from the floor and 1 of 5 from three).

Game Plan. St. John’s coach Norm Roberts saw on film that Luke Harangody is an outstanding passer out of the low post double team. Roberts decided to play Harangody straight up with Justin Burrell. Harangody scored 28 (12 of 24 from the field) but worked for virtually everything. In fact, the only uncontested field goal he had was on a screen and roll where St. John’s failed to switch.

Pace. In their win over DePaul on New Year’s Eve, the Irish pushed the tempo to a 72 possession contest. St. John’s got them into a 67 possession contest which was more to the Red Storm’s liking.

Caring for the ball. Mike Brey’s club does not commit a great deal of turnovers and handled any St. John’s 2-2-1 pressure well. Against DePaul, ND had a 13% TO rate and on Saturday it was 16%. Both great numbers.

Harangody. A great player, the ND star has size at 6-8 255-pounds yet is agile as a swing man fifty pounds lighter. Harangody can power you inside or put it on the floor and use an assortment of post moves. He has outstanding footwork and is a seemingly tireless competitor. Can’t say Hoya fans will enjoy watching him but they will admire him.

Ray Floriani Sighting(s)

Just took a look in my inbox and noticed a prod from Ray Floriani (occasional contributor), who wanted to let us know that he's now also writing for College Chalk Talk (A-10 Conf. blog). I especially liked his write-up of the UMass NIT run, where he points out that defense was the difference maker (one of my favorite themes). As usual, greyCat from VbtN is out ahead of me on this.

If you didn't know, Ray has been writing about college basketball for more than 25 years now - he's based out of the Garden State. In addition to numerous articles for a number of on-line websites (e.g. Hoopville, Cracked Sidewalks, Villanova by the Numbers, Basketball Times), he's also the author of a pictoral history of the NIT, available on Amazon (5-star rated!).

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Speaking of other blogs, if you haven't had a chance, do go over to Cracked Sidewalks (Marquette blog), as Henry Sugar is just killing it in the off-season with his 2-part Big East preseason preview (Intro, Part 1, Part 2).

Also, a relatively new Big East blog has arrived, Cards Hoops (now linked on the right sidebar), which got out of the gates with a run-down of the top-75 Big East players for the upcoming season (here's the top-10). No obvious methodology, as far as I could tell, but a good read nonetheless.

Analysis: Georgetown 74, St. John's 42

Better late than never, as they say.

I've got a source working on getting me the individual player stats for the St. John's game by half, but for now I'll just post the tempo-free box score:

		Offense				Defense
	1st Half	2nd Half	Total		1st Half	2nd Half	Total
Pace	30	34	64
Eff.	135.9	96.6	115.0		46.4	81.9	65.3
eFG%	60.3	58.3	59.4		12.5	27.4	22.3
TO%	16.6	32.2	24.9		43.1	17.6	29.5
OR%	55.6	28.6	43.8		33.3	46.2	41.5
FTA/FGA	44.8	37.5	41.5		81.3	54.8	63.8
FTM/FGA	20.7	20.8	20.8		62.5	35.5	44.7
Assist Rate	66.7	69.2	67.9		50.0	50.0	50.0
Block Rate	5.0	18.8	11.1		30.0	13.0	18.2
Steal Rate	3.3	11.7	7.8		23.2	5.9	14.0
2FG%	50.0	68.8	58.3		20.0	30.4	27.3
3FG%	55.6	25.0	41.2		0.0	12.5	7.1
FT%	46.2	55.6	50.0		76.9	64.7	70.0

The 1st half almost defies description - the difference in efficiency between the teams (Efficiency Margin) was 89.5, which means that Georgetown was scoring 0.90 points per possession more than St. John's. Only the 2nd half against Radford was more lopsided than this, and keep in mind that Pomeroy rates the Red Storm 127th of 341 teams after this game, while Radford is 310/341.

Other points:

• The 56% OR Rate was the best half on the offensive glass this season. This, more than the customarily high eFG% and low TO % seems to have boosted the Hoyas 1st half offense.

• The contrapositive was occurring at the other basket, as St. John's couldn't make a shot and didn't get many attempts, as they committed an amazing 13 turnovers on 30 possessions.

• After seemingly being licked, ugly free-throw shooting returned in this game. Excluding Austin Freeman's 6-8 FTs, the rest of the team shot a woeful 5-14 at the line. While it's expected to lay the blame on Vernon Macklin (2-5 FTs), this also was due to Jeremiah Rivers ugly shooting night (0-3 3FG, 1-5 FTs).
  

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Ray Floriani came through and sent in a report from the game, along with pictures and a Hoyatalk celebrity sighting!

NEW YORK CITY – Sixth ranked Georgetown visited St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. On paper this looked like it could be all Georgetown. To date though, the results in the Big East serve as proof virtually anything can happen. Following is a summary broken down by media timeouts.


1st Half
20:00 – 15:48
St.John’s shows a little zone and some man Hoyas patiently set up and see what is available. First few minutes give no indication of what is in store.
6-2 Georgetown

15:48 – 11:45
Austin Freeman steals the ball and goes coast to coast. Jeremiah Rivers hits a jumper and suddenly it’s 10-2 Hoyas. Coach John Thompson III is looking to get out and run. St. John’s is running some nice sets off screens and dribble penetrations but cannot finish as Georgetown’s size inside is a factor.
15-2 Georgetown

11:45 – 7:54
Jonathan Wallace drains a three just under 10 to go to increase the margin to 18-3. Time out St. John’s. The boos start during the T.O. and "Fire Norm" chants slowly emerge.
24-3 Georgetown

7:54 – 3:54
Georgetown starts subbing frequently. Rivers gets an MSG cheer of approval on a nice penetration. Both clubs are in man to man defenses. Justin Burrell gets St. John’s first field goal of the game, an eight footer from the right of the lane, with 4 and a half minutes left. The mock cheers react to Burrell’s shot.
31-7 Georgetown

3:53 – 0:00 - It’s still the first half but both clubs have gone deep to their bench. Thompson puts the brakes on transition but still runs some nice backdoor series out of the Princeton offense. I'm impressed with Vernon Macklin who is getting appreciable minutes this first half. At the buzzer, a St. John’s half court prayer rims and goes out. It’s been that kind of night for Norm Roberts and company.
41-14 Georgetown


Halftime
It’s time to get stats and grab a few pictures. Notice a good number of Hoya fans in attendance. Meet one who visits the blogs (a fan of Hoya Prospectus) and tells me he signs on forums as Jahidihoya. We talk about the days when this matchup sold out MSG. Now, St. John’s is struggling and the listed attendance of 9,924 includes a good number out to see nationally ranked Georgetown. Jahidihoya notes that as much as it’s great to be cruising on to an easy win there’s a sadness. “St. John’s is a small Catholic, urban school,” he said. “You like to see them competitive and it’s good for the Big East.”

Get back to my spot on the press row baseline and sitting behind me is a young woman with three bottles of beer. “Triple fisted?” I ask. “No,” she says laughing. “I’m holding a few for friends.” No matter. If you are a Georgetown fan, it’s time to celebrate, or a St. John’s fan, drown your sorrows.

A quick glance shows St. John’s is 2 of 16 from the field. That’s 12.5%.


2nd Half
20:00 – 15:45
Roy Hibbert gets three field goals early. One off a nice backdoor cut. Another where he tips a pass to the post right into the hoop.
Georgetown 51-14

15:48 – 11:06
St. John’s shows some 2-3 matchup zone. Hibbert and Macklin set up in a double post zone offense alignment. Looks good and is very effective.
Georgetown 56-18

11:06 – 7:57
Patrick Ewing jr. sets a high post screen for a cutter who gets the pass then dishes to an open Macklin. It’s a blowout but watching the Hoyas execute is a thing of beauty. St. John’s still keeps working. During time out a fan hits a free throw and a three pointer as part of a promotion. One writer on press row remarks "get him a uniform."
Georgetown 60-25

7:57 – 3:30
St.John’s goes back to man. Hibbert goes to the bench finishing with 11 points, 6 rebounds in 19 minutes. Burrell is active inside for St. John’s but the Red Storm are even missing the close to the basket ‘gimmes’. Fans start to head to the exits.
Georgetown 65-33

3:30 – 0:00
Still admire Georgetown ball movement and succession of passes that leads to good looks. Anthony Mason Jr. goes in and dunks on successive possessions which gives St. John’s fans something to cheer about. Bryon Jenson, a 6-6 reserve forward, banks a three at the buzzer for the Hoyas. It’s the exclamation point on a long evening for St. John’s.
Final: Georgetown 74-42


In post game interviews Thompson talks about the Hoya defense. How pleased he was with the effort and "how our guys were attentive, helped each other and had a great understanding of stopping what they (St. John’s) were trying to accomplish.”

The Hoya mentor said he expected St. John’s to make a run but it never materialized. “Their shots weren’t dropping,” Thompson said of St. John’s, “but that happens to all of us on a given night.”

Red Storm coach Norm Roberts repeated on several occasions the common mantra of taking the blame, getting ready to play and having to get his team to play tougher. On the 10 of 47 (21%) shooting, Roberts said, “we work on shooting 35 minutes a day but Georgetown is long, aggressive and may be the best defensive team in the country.” Few would argue Roberts’ last point.

Hoyas improve to 17-2 (7-1) while St. John’s is now 7-12 (1-7).

Vernon Macklin paces the Hoyas with 18 points while Burrell and Mason Jr. lead St. John’s with 9 points. The Red Storm have almost twice as many turnovers (19) as field goals (10).

Guest Preview: Rutgers

Nothing like posting a game preview half an hour before tip-off, but here goes anyway. Ray Floriani, NJ native, sent me a preview yesterday, but I'm just getting to it now (sorry Ray!):

Tomorrow Georgetown visits the RAC for an afternoon meeting with a Rutgers team that is struggling and 0-1 in conference play. Coach Fred Hill is unsure of his starters at this point. One thing is certain, minus the services of Corey Chandler, a talented freshman guard, it’s going to be a struggle. A look at the key personnel.

JR Inman 6’9” JR – Didn’t start at USF but logged appreciable minutes. Suited more as a four but will play the five at times. Can put it on the floor and hit the perimeter shot. Struggled a great deal against UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough which doesn’t bode well with 7’2” Roy Hibbert in the paint.

Anthony Farmer 6’1’ JR – Scoring and looking for his shot a little more in Chandler’s absence.

Courtney Nelson 6’1” JR – Getting more time due to Chandler’s injury. Nelson has been an enigma. Ever since his arrival after transferring from Richmond, Nelson has struggled shooting the ball.

Mike Coburn 6’ – Mount Vernon product, getting more action and coming along as the season progresses.

Hamady Ndaye 6’11” SO – The five man. Can block shots but not a great offensive threat. Will have his hands full with Hibbert.

Earl Pettis 6’5” – Hill has been happy with his hustle and energy. If he doesn’t start he’ll see a good amount of minutes.

Jaron Griffin 6’7” – Junior swingman who likes to launch the three. Could have given RU the lead the other night as he shot two T’s (for a USF warmup dunk). Griffin missed both. A premonition of Rutgers’ night.

Byron Joynes 6’9” – The senior center can be effective in spots but not over the long haul. The RU official site notes he leads the team in charges drawn.

Three keys for Georgetown

1. Establish the lead. RAC is tough place to play and the fans will be pumped. Against North Carolina once the lead hit double digits, the crowd was less a factor. Georgetown has to come out with poise, run their sets and take it a possession at a time.

2. Take advantage of Rutgers inside. Ndaye and Joynes won’t go the full 40 and Inman is susceptible to good big men. With Hibbert, the Hoyas can exploit in the middle.

3. Dribble penetration. Rutgers has struggled all season from the perimeter but the guards can get in the lane. Something to be mindful of as the Hoya big men are not as valuable sitting out with foul trouble.

Analysis: It's the defense, stupid

While I haven't read every post on HoyaTalk since the Memphis beat-down, I've read enough to know that there is a wide spectrum of opinion on which players performed well and which did not.

But it should be made perfectly clear that, as ugly as the 2nd half was for Georgetown, the failure was not on the offense, but entirely by the defense. I'll explain how I think I know this.


I've touched on this in a previous post, but I'll reiterate here that it is possible to evaluate team performance, using the information in KenPom.com's stats database. If you look at the Georgetown schedule page on his website, you'll see a prediction for the remaining games, as a result (W/L), score, pace and probability. However, for games completed, this information is removed (why?).

Fortunately, I've worked out enough of KenPom's system so that I can calculate the expected offensive and defensive efficiency for any team against any other team, using KenPom's adjusted OEff and DEff posted on his website. This system isn't perfect, or even close to that, since it doesn't know about injuries, suspensions, etc. on the date of any game, but it can give you a rough idea how well Georgetown should fair against any opponent, accounting for game site, if they played today.

The result is what I call performance. Here, I use KenPom's expected point spread, adjusted for the actual pace of the game, and compare it to the actual point spread of that game. That is, if the Hoyas are expected to beat Team A by 10 points, based on KenPom's stats, but actually win by 14 points, the performance for that game is +4 points. Instead of printing another table, here I'll display the results as a category plot:

What performance gives you is context - it lets you know whether a 32 point win at home against Jacksonville is impressive (it isn't), and even allows you to rank each game by how well the Hoyas played. From this plot, you can see that the season-opening William & Mary win at home by 15 points (Perf. = -12 pts.) was more of a disappointment than yesterday's loss at Memphis by 14 points (Perf. = -10 pts.).

Of course, these evaluations are exceptionally hazardous to do early in the season, since there will likely be a lot of movement by all teams in both quality of play, and the statistics ability to judge this. But, as far as crude tools go, it's not bad.


You can take this a step further, and break out performance into its two components, offense and defense. Again, I can work through the math and plot how well G'town's offense and defense performed in each game, accounting for the quality of the opposing defense or offense (respectively) and the actual game pace. That is to say, if the Hoyas are expected to score 70 points against Team B in a 63 possession game, but actually score 66 points, the offense performance for the game is -4 points; same method for defense performance. Note that offense and defense performance summed should equal overall performance, unless I've buggered up the math.

First, offense performance so far this year:

It turns out that against the vaunted Memphis defense, currently ranked #11 by KenPom, scoring 71 points in a 70 possession game was not a bad performance at all, but actually +5 points above expected.

The other, more general note, is that there appears to be a trend of improving offense as the season has progressed, although I'd be a bit hesitant to draw this conclusion until another few games have been played.


On to defense performance:

Yes, it really was that bad.

After playing the first 8 games with a defense performance in the range of -4 to +6 points, the Hoyas' defense dropped a -15 pt. performance yesterday (or, equally as valid, Memphis had a +15 point offense performance against Georgetown).

I'll leave it up to those who know more about basketball to figure out what went wrong on defense (cough, cough, rebounding, cough), and come up with suggestions on how to fix it.

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I've updated the Georgetown Season Statistics - Team and Individual Splits page through the Memphis game. There are big differences now in home/road splits, thanks to the Memphis game.


On another note, I've read many posts on HoyaTalk complaining about the perceived and/or real lack of production from this blog's favorite underdog Hoya, namely Vernon Macklin. While defensive stats are hard to come by and even harder to evaluate, right now we can see that Big Ticket has an Offensive Rating of 105, ranking near the bottom of the 9 regular players (and Chris Wright is making up ground in a hurry). We also are all painfully aware of his free-throw shooting woes (3-18 [17%] after Memphis).

Out of curiosity, I changed his free-throws made to 11-18 [61%], a pedestrian rate by any scale other than the current Hoyas, and his ORating moves to 132, which would lead the team. Quite simply, other than the execrable free throw shooting, Macklin is playing as well as we could have expected. Of course, you can't ignore FT shooting.


Finally, I'm just now getting to a brief story that Ray Floriani sent in earlier this week, summarizing the UNC/Rutgers clash.

What a difference a game makes.

On Thursday, Rutgers defeated winless NJIT at the Prudential Center in Newark.

On Sunday it was a meeting with top ranked North Carolina at the RAC. A breakdown of both games follows.

	Rutgers	NJIT
Score	65	55
Possessions	69	69
Off. Eff.	94.1	79.6
Four factors
eFG %	37	39.8
TO %	18.8	21.7
OR %	34.9	25
FT Rate	63	38.9

The game was as close as the score indicated; Rutgers led by 6 with 8 minutes remaining. The Scarlet Knights went on a tear to increase the lead to 16 before NJIT made a few late baskets for the final margin. NJIT stayed around a good part of the contest before Rutgers used their three guard set to spread the floor and take the Highlanders off the dribble. Notice the free throw rate as indicating Rutgers ability to get in the lane and ultimately get to the charity stripe.

	UNC	Rutgers
Score	93	71
Possessions	80	80
Off. Eff.	116	88.6
Four factors
eFG %	46.3	41.5
TO %	15	24.9
OR %	49	35.2
FT Rate	26.3	40

It was a faster tempo game with UNC putting the pedal to the medal. Rutgers paid dearly for their 20 turnovers, as UNC outscored the Scarlet Knights 30-10 off those miscues. The OR Rate attests to fact that Rutgers not only saw guard pressure (Ty Lawson 26 points 4 steals and several deflections ) but a formidable frontcourt (Tyler Hansbrough 20 pts 11 boards and Deon Thompson 9 boards).