Georgetown tries to bounce back from a gut-wrencher when it hosts Connecticut at noon EST Saturday. You can watch the game on ESPN or listen on ESPN 980 or Westwood One.
Connecticut, like the rest of the conference, has had a lot of turnover from last year, but is still a force. The Huskies come into the game 11-3 and ranked one behind the Hoyas at #13, with an identical 2-1 record in conference, home wins over Seton Hall and Notre Dame, a narrow road loss to Cincinnati, and respectable non-conference losses to #5 Duke and #3 Kentucky.
After the losses of Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien, the Huskies might be expected to have a gap inside. Not so: senior forward Gavin Edwards and freshman center Alex Oriakhi, both 6’9″ and in the 230-240-lb. range, are avaraging a combined 14.5 rebounds and 5.3 blocks per game. The Huskies are strong on the wing, with seniors guard Jerome Dyson (19.9 ppg, 5.5 apg, 5.4 rpg, 1.4 stl pg) and forward Stanley Robinson (17.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 1.1 stl pg, 1.5 blk pg) doing just about everything. Sophomore guard Kemba Walker, like his counterpart on the Hoyas Jason Clark, has improved markedly during his second season, and now leads the team in assists (6.1 pg) and steals (1.9 pg).
As always, the Hoyas should be ready for a Huskies team that will seek to control the boards and the paint, and will hound the ball defensively. But the Huskies are error-prone–Dyson and Walker each average over three turnovers per game and shoot below 41% from the field. UConn makes up for those mistakes with talent–Walker, Dyson, and Robinson are as tough a 1-2-3 combination as the Hoyas will face all year.
Georgetown needs a quick turn-around after a difficult road loss at Marquette. One challenge will be to establish Greg Monroe, who was taken just six shots in each of his last two outings, against the Huskies’ bigs. Monroe went off against UConn last year, scoring 16 points and working around Thabeet en route to the Hoyas’ upset of UConn and signature win of last year. A second, related, challenge will be keeping UConn’s bigs off the boards; Monroe and Julian Vaughn lost the battle to Marquette’s mighty mites, so we’ll see how they fare against larger competition. Chris Wright, Clark, and Austin Freeman will have their work cut out for them against the quick Huskies’ perimeter players.
As in previous years, this game will be determined by tempo. The Hoyas can win if they limit turnovers, slow the Huskies down, force them into half-court sets, and in turn force bad shots. On offense, Georgetown’s best bet will be to use the Huskies’ speed and athleticism against them–back cuts, ball fakes, and perimeter ball movement.
As Georgetown saw Wednesday night, roadies will be very tough this year, and with contests at Villanova, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse looming, a home W is particularly crucial tomorrow.
Prediction–Georgetown 64, Connecticut 62.
