It's that time of year again. Our 'other' long-time Jesuit rivals are coming to town with an upset on their minds. When you ask a Villanova fan who their most hated rivals are, Georgetown is almost always on the list. The history between the two schools is long, reaching it's apex in the 1985 NCAA Tournament final, when underdogs Villanova famously upset the reigning champions. Neither team has won another title since that game.
Both schools are in the midst of a basketball renaissance under their current coaches. Georgetown made it to the 2007 Final Four, while our Wildcats were there just last year. Coming into this game, Villanova is ranked #4 in both Polls while Georgetown is ranked as #11. Villanova is #6 in RPI to Georgetown's #10. Villanova comes into this game as a favorite on it's home court, but probably not as a strong one.
Georgetown has three players you should worry about: Chris Wright, Greg Monroe and Austin Freeman. Each of those three are scoring 14 points per game or more, with Freeman leading the way at 15.5. Monroe is their biggest scoring threat inside (with no other forwards averaging double-digits) and he also leads the team with 9.7 rebounds per game.
Georgetown has an assist to turnover ratio of 1/1 so far this year, while our Wildcats have fared slightly better at 1.1/1. The Hoyas school 49.9% from the floor, 38.2% from three, and 71.3% from the free throw line (Villanova lags from the floor, but edges the Hoyas out from three and at the free throw line).
Thanks to Julian Vaughn (2.0) and Greg Monroe (1.6), the Hoyas average 5.5 blocked shots per game. Villanova has only averaged 3.5 so far, lead by Mo Sutton (1.2), Mouph Yarou (0.8), and Antonio Pena (0.6). The Wildcats, however, have averaged 8.3 steals, which is slightly better than 7.8 produced y the Hoyas.
You can expect sophomore Jason Clark to play a role on Sunday as well. He has a big wingspan and could be an important role-player. Especially because Thompson prefers to play a slower game, using his own version of the Princeton offense, and will surely try to force us into a half-court game.
Villanova needs to settle in for this one. We score an awful lot of points in transition, but if the Hoyas are successful at turning this into a half-court game, we may have trouble scoring points. It will be important in that situation to grab rebounds over the Georgetown defenders. That may not be a problem since the Wildcats are averaging 40.3 rebounds to Georgetown's 35.2.
So far, Georgetown has conference wins over St. Johns, Seton Hall, DePaul and Connecticut. Their sole conference loss came to Marquette. They also lost to Old Dominion on December 19th.
See Also:
I Bleed Blue and White's Q&A with CasualHoya
Villanova Viewpoint's Concise History
Hoya Suxa (Syracuse fan's anti-Georgetown blog)
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