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Hoyas’ meteoric rise continues
By Jason King
March 12, 2010
New York, NY — The hottest team in college basketball finished eighth in its own conference. Georgetown says that doesn’t matter now, and if you’ve watched the Hoyas play in the Big East tournament this week, you know they speak the truth.
On Thursday John Thompson III’s team beat league champion Syracuse; Friday it walloped Marquette by 23 points; and no one will be surprised Saturday if the Hoyas and their three McDonald’s All-Americans defeat No. 6 West Virginia for the tournament title.
Less than a week before March Madness, Georgetown looks insane. The Hoyas are downright scary – even if they’re too caught up in the moment to realize it.
“I don’t know about scary,” said center Greg Monroe, arguably the top big man in college basketball. “But we’re a good team right now. We’re playing well. Everyone believes in each other.
“No matter what anyone else says, that’s the most important thing.”
The Hoyas (22-9) have been one of the most puzzling stories in college basketball all season. Actually, make that the last two seasons.
After being pegged in the preseason as a Big East title contender, Georgetown finished just 7-11 in conference play last year, failed to make the NCAA tournament and then lost in the first round of the NIT to Baylor.
This year the Hoyas won 11 of their 12 first games but had a terrible stretch in February when they dropped games to unranked South Florida, Notre Dame and Rutgers. When leading scorer Austin Freeman was diagnosed with diabetes near the end of the month, it appeared Georgetown was headed for a lackluster finish once again.
“Two or three weeks ago we were sick – physically sick,” Thompson III said. “We’re healthy now. The kids are extremely focused.”
Georgetown has too many losses to think about being a No. 1 or probably even a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. But make no mistake: If the Hoyas continue to play as well as they have at Madison Square Garden this week, they’re just as big of a threat to reach the Final Four as national title favorites Kansas and Kentucky.
For all of their bad losses, the Hoyas also have an impressive collection of wins.
Georgetown owns victories over two teams (Syracuse and Duke) who are projected to be No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament. Only Tennessee – which beat Kansas and Kentucky – and Louisville can make such a claim.
Georgetown will enter the NCAA tournament ranked No. 1 in the nation in strength of schedule and No. 9 in RPI. The amusing factoid circulating around Madison Square Garden Friday was that Georgetown will be seeded higher in the NCAA tournament than it was in the Big East Tournament (eighth).
That speaks to the strength and depth of the league. Not many teams are as battle-tested as the Hoyas, who played six of the seven teams seeded before them on the road during the regular season.
It’s a situation that should certainly pay off in the NCAAs. With Freeman back in the lineup and the rest of the Hoyas’ nagging injuries all but healed, there’s no reason to believe Thompson III’s squad isn’t capable of making a significant run.
“It’s playoff time,” said Freeman, who was referring as much to Saturday’s league tournament championship game against West Virginia as he was to everything else that lies ahead.
That focus, more than anything, is what Thompson III loves about his squad right now.
“It’s March,” he said. “There’s no time to take a breath and pat yourself on the back in March. Your next opponent is very good. Your next opponent is well-coached. Your next opponent is trying to kick your behind.
“So, no, we aren’t satisfied at all. We didn’t come here just to say we beat Syracuse.”
Georgetown’s victory over the Orange hardly seemed like an upset. And if anything Friday’s 80-57 shellacking of Marquette seemed like a mismatch despite the fact that the Golden Eagles defeated the Hoyas during the regular season.
Marquette looked helpless in being outscored 46-22 in the paint. Georgetown outrebounded Buzz Williams’ squad 44-24 and was also effective from the outside, where it swished half of its 12 shots from beyond the arc.
One of those 3-pointers came from the 6-foot-11 Monroe, who is suddenly drawing comparisons to some of the more dominant big men in Georgetown history. During a two-minute stretch Friday Monroe made a running jump shot, a dunk, a 3-pointer and also had an assist on a break before blocking a shot.
“We see that every day,” Thompson III said. “What’s become commonplace for us, the rest of world gets to see every once in awhile.”
Beginning next week, those might not be as infrequent.
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Turner’s 37-foot buzzer beater lifts Ohio State
By CLIFF BRUNT
March 12, 2010
Indianapolis, IN , — Evan Turner’s accuracy was off, and the player widely regarded as one of the nation’s best was becoming visibly frustrated in the final minutes.
When the game clock showed 2.2 seconds, those issues no longer mattered.
Turner took an inbounds pass, dribbled upcourt and drained a 37-footer at the buzzer to give No. 5 Ohio State a 69-68 win over Michigan on Friday in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals.
“You can’t really practice for those moments, you just have to come out and come ready,” he said.
The Big Ten player of the year left his arm in the air after the release, confident that the long shot would fall.
“I was just trying to get the ball up and get it in shooting range and keep my follow-through, and it went in,” he said modestly.
Turner finished with 18 points and eight assists for the Buckeyes (25-7), who advanced to play Illinois in the semifinals on Saturday. The Fighting Illini beat No. 13 Wisconsin 58-54 on Friday afternoon.
Turner’s final attempt was so close to the buzzer that the play was reviewed. When the officials signaled the shot was good, the red-clad section of the crowd erupted.
Ohio State coach Thad Matta said he wasn’t sure the Buckeyes deserved such good fortune.
“It’s funny because I was so mad kind of at how we had played throughout the course of the game. But as he let it go, I thought, `That thing has got a chance to go in,’ ” he said. “As it kept going, going, going, boom, went in, and obviously I’m not sure it was supposed to go in with how we had played for 39 minutes and 57.8 seconds, but fortunately it did.”
Turner had shot 1 for 8 in the second half, but took the biggest shot of the game without hesitation. He was surprised that no one impeded his progress as he dribbled up the court.
“Honestly I thought they were going to press or something like that,” Turner said. “The whole game, they were swarming me. They gave me one good look. Being open felt a little bit free. I felt like I was in the gym by myself.”
Michigan coach John Beilein thought the shot was good right away.
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that buzzer and saw that ball go in, and son of a gun, it looked in from the get-go, as well.”
Michigan’s Manny Harris hit a jumper from 11 feet with 2.2 seconds left to give Michigan a 68-66 lead. Harris led the Wolverines (15-17) with 26 points, and his big performance made the final result all the more disappointing for the Wolverines.
“It definitely hurt,” Harris said. “We were excited (after his shot), but at the same time we knew anything could happen. They had two seconds, a lot of time to shoot and score, and that’s what Evan Turner did.”
Michigan began the season ranked 15th, but Friday’s game was representative of the season for Wolverines.
“That’s a great catch phrase, microcosm of the season,” Beilein said. “That’s a little bit of the frustration that we have this year. Some things that you can’t always control happen to you. It’s certainly indicative of some things that happened.”
David Lighty and William Buford each scored 15 points for Ohio State. Stu Douglass and DeShawn Sims each had 16 points for Michigan.
The Buckeyes led 39-29 early in the second half before back-to-back 3-pointers by Douglass chopped the Buckeyes’ lead to 39-35.
Another 3 by Douglass trimmed Ohio State’s lead to 42-38, but Ohio State responded with a 9-0 run. A 3-pointer by Turner capped the spurt midway through the second half.
Michigan surged again, and a 3-pointer by Harris while fading away from beyond the key cut Ohio State’s lead to 59-57, leading to the frantic final minutes.
Matta wasn’t happy the Buckeyes let Michigan back in the game, and he hopes his team learned from the experience.
“Hopefully this game can shake us, some of the cobwebs out, and get us back on track,” he said
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