BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Georgetown @ Connecticut

January 14, 2006

I think we are really getting an idea at how unforgiving this league is. Georgetown travels to NYC on Sunday, then to Morgantown on Wednesday and it is off to Hartford for a noon tip on Saturday, already the Hoyas' 7th road game of the season. they return home next week to host South Florida and Duke.

For Connecticut, they are coming off a home win over Cincinnati on Monday and will have a quick turnaround of their own as they travel to Syracuse for a Big Monday match-up after this one and also has Louisville on the road next weekend as well.

Last year these teams met once at Georgetown and once at Madison Square Garden in the Big East tournament with UConn winning both, 66-59 and 66-62. Both games were played in the range the Hoyas prefer, the 60's, and UConn battered them on the boards in each, but the deliberate style of play of Georgetown definitely kept Georgetown a tad out of sync.

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Georgetown does return everyone from last season, so they will try to bring the same game plan against UConn with a little better effort on the boards. Georgetown really has an excellent starting 5 with Darrel Owens adding some punch off the bench. With Brandon Bowman, Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert off the bench, the Hoyas can match-up with the Connecticut front line of Rudy Gay, Josh Boone and Hilton Armstrong. However, the Hoyas really do not have any additional answers off the bench to keep getting bigger while UConn can bring in Jeff Adrien and Ed Nelson to the mix as well.

The backcourts are also intriguing. Georgetown starts Jonathan Wallace at the point in their motion-based Princeton offense while Connecticut has freshmen Craig Austrie manning the point. At the shooting guard, each team has their own enigmas in Ashanti Cook and Denham Brown. Each player shows flashes of being brilliant, but each senior also has a tendency to disappear for games or at important junctures. Obviously, with Rashard Anderson and Marcus Johnson behind him, Brown has more support and UConn can overcome a subpar performance from him. With Georgetown, they have Darrel Owens, but he is more of a wing G/F and freshmen Jesse Sapp, but Cook is usually a key ingredient to deciding Georgetown's fate in big games. Connecticut also has Marcus Williams, back from suspension and now battling mononucleosis, in the mix at PG, again, showing how much depth this UConn team has available. If he is healthy, he is likely to get the majority of time at the point and his passing was key in the decisive run on Monday.

Connecticut is going to try to force tempo and use their size and athletic ability to hit the boards hard. They feel good when they are putting up 70+ shots a game. On the other had, Georgetown is much more methodical and wants to force UConn to defend 25-30 seconds per possession and milk you into a half court game. In 14 games this season, Connecticut has attempted 907 field goals (65/game) while in 13 games, Georgetown has attempted 644 shots from the field (49.5/game). Not only has Connecticut made more FT's (259) than their opponents have attempted (250), but they make more per game (18.5) than Georgetown attempts a game (18.46).

Georgetown really had a chance at West Virginia as the Mountaineers could not put up a normal performance from beyond the arc, but they were beaten on the boards and lost a little bit of their composure late in the game. The grueling week of road games that began Sunday night is too much to overcome in this one with a deep Connecticut team that is still improving and working out the kinks while getting players back into the mix. If Georgetown can keep the game in the 60's, they will hang, but I expect them to slowly fade throughout the game with all the athletes Connecticut will throw at them.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Connecticut 74 Georgetown 63


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