NEW YORK — In the last frantic days of play before Selection Sunday, no team is scarier to face than one fighting for its life. Villanova was that team Thursday afternoon, needing a victory over top-seed Georgetown to secure NCAA tournament hopes.
The Wildcats were definitely hungry Thursday afternoon, but in the end the Hoyas were king of the Madison Square jungle, beating the Villanova Wildcats (20-12, 9-10) 82-63 in their quarterfinal game of the Big East Tournament.
Georgetown (26-4, 16-3), walking onto the court confidently behind a perfect 12-0 record in the Big East Tournament when they enter as the top seed, took control of the game in a way the Hoyas have struggled to do all season.
The Hoyas burst out of the gate behind a red-hot Jonathan Wallace, who hit five-for-five behind the arc in the first half, and added two more jump shots to lead the Hoyas with a 19-point first half.
“My emphasis coming out … [was to] make sure I was always aggressive,” Wallace said. “Keeping the offense moving really well.”
Villanova shut down senior star Roy Hibbert early on, and Georgetown struggled to penetrate, receiving little help from inside the paint. Sophomore forward DaJuan Summers picked up two quick fouls to send himself to the bench early on, playing only five minutes in the first half.
But as Villanova was concentrating on the inside, Georgetown kept kicking it back out to the arc, racking up points at the three-point line. Wallace wasn’t the only Hoya hot from down in the first act, as the team combined for 10 treys, compared to Villanova’s two. For the game, the Hoyas tied West Virginia for the Big East Tournament record for three pointers with 17.
“I think they really attacked our pressure to get threes, they started the game that way, and that’s a very confident mentality,” Villanova Head Coach Jay Wright said. “We let everybody else make threes, so he [Hibbert] couldn’t score. That wasn’t the plan, though.”
“They put such an emphasis on taking away post play that everything else opens up,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said of his first half strategy.
The first half was not all easy coasting for Georgetown, however, as the team ran into foul trouble. Though not every Hoya notched a basket, everyone off the Georgetown bench in the first half picked up at least one foul, making a total of 14 personals against the team, including one technical foul by Patrick Ewing Jr., by the half.
Behind Wallace’s lead, Georgetown went into the locker room up 40-29.
Despite the 11-point deficit, Villanova was still hungry for the win. “We didn’t feel bad at halftime, believe it or not,” Wright said. “We were getting the ball inside, … getting to the foul line.”
Villanova came out quick in the second half, eliminating Georgetown’s lead within five minutes. The Hoyas helped them out a little bit, struggling defensively for the first part of the second half, and coming out with a missed layup by Hibbert, followed by some bad looks and shots in the next few possessions.
“We had some lapses at the start of the second half,” Thompson said. “That’s a very good team,” he added. “You know they’re gonna come, and they made that run in the second half, but we stuck together, as we do, as we do.”
Macklin and Hibbert continued to rack up fouls, and the Hoyas went cold from behind the arc, but Georgetown’s trademark aggressive defense kept the team in the game until they could pull away at the end of the game. Ewing kept up a Hoya presence in the paint while Hibbert spent most of the game on the bench, leading the team in rebounds with nine.
But Sapp was the driving force for the Hoyas in the second half, scoring 14 of his points after halftime. Sapp finished with six three pointers and a career-high 23 points to lead all scorers on the day.
After a quiet first half with just three points and five minutes of play, Summers found his rhythm in the second half, finishing with 19 points.
Hibbert fouled out with zero points and five minutes of play left on the clock.
“To say Roy had a tough time getting in the rhythm would be an understatement,” Thompson said. “We know that we’re good enough, particularly when everyone else steps up to win, but that can’t happen.”
Hibbert’s poor play ended up not mattering as the Hoyas “slowly and methodically” pulled away as Thompson described it. Summers finished the Wildcats off with a dunk in the last minute, and the Hoyas came away with an 82-63 victory, only the fifth time they scored that many points all season.
After missing most of the season with a reported ankle injury, freshman guard Chris Wright saw his first minutes of play since December, and gave the Hoyas an extra boost in the game.
“It gives us a little more depth. He’s been a big injury to us this year; we’ve missed him,” Thompson said.
Georgetown will advance to the semifinals and play West Virginia following the Mountaineers' 78-72 upset of Connecticut.