Supposedly Awesome Big East Season Begins: Georgetown vs. Connecticut
College Basketball December 29th. 2008, 6:41pm
Anyone remember last year’s Georgetown-Connecticut game? Current Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert hit a triple – one of three that he hit in his stellar 104-game career with the Hoyas – from the top of the key, bedlam erupted, and the Hoyas escaped with a victory over an unranked team. Tonight, the rivalry – Iverson vs. Ray Allen waged a couple epic battles in 1995 and 1996 – continues when No. 9 Georgetown travels to Stoors to play unbeaten Connecticut, which is ranked 2nd. The Hoyas’ lone loss is to scrappy Tennessee; the Huskies play much better defense.
UConn is nearly a touchdown favorite, which doesn’t seem like enough considering two huge advantages for the Huskies: All-American center Hasheem Thabeet going against Hoyas’ freshman Greg Monroe, and Hoyas sophomore Omar Wattad, who has cracked the starting lineup, matching up with (maybe) with Connecticut’s leading scorer, Jerome Dyson.
Apologies for the afternoon slowness – were on a plane most of the day, and just touched down.
48 Responses to “Supposedly Awesome Big East Season Begins: Georgetown vs. Connecticut”
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December 29th, 2008 at 7:09 PM
way to miss a dunk, thabeet. feeling great about my conn -6.5 wager now that they are down 10-1 before the first TV TO
December 29th, 2008 at 7:10 PM
make it 12-1.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:11 PM
monroe swishes a triple … 15-1. wow, hoyas look impressive in the first five minutes.
monroe pulling thabeet away from the hoop, and Conn looks confused. go zone, Jim.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:14 PM
UCONN are frauds but they are fucking dangerous.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:17 PM
This game ought to tide me over till’ that MU game.
Damn Stanley Robinson!
December 29th, 2008 at 7:25 PM
UConn slowly coming back. only down 6 now
can we outlaw the mohawk? EVERYONE has one. so played out. so 2007.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:27 PM
Next up, Mullet???
December 29th, 2008 at 7:37 PM
So Matt Grothe.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:38 PM
maybe the short-long?
December 29th, 2008 at 7:43 PM
is that 5 first-half blocks for thabeet?
December 29th, 2008 at 7:45 PM
I say go back to the kid-n-play high top fade…
December 29th, 2008 at 7:53 PM
i think that is what brandon jennings rocks, mak
December 29th, 2008 at 8:07 PM
not tall enough. Still great tho.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:33 PM
Herm gave his Dead Man Walking press conference today. L. Johnson is gone. No #1 RB, QB or WR. D line is a mess. The Chiefs get to try rebuilding yet again! Good times.
Mizzou is getting spanked. Hat tip to TBL on Mizzou’s season.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:37 PM
Mizzou football?
Huskies def not covering 6.5, now i wonder if they’re even going to win, down 11 with 8 mins left.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:37 PM
Thabeet should stop talking shit about the Neanderthal at UNC and start protecting his home court.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:48 PM
major letdown by thabeet against a FRESHMAN. monroe looks like a major star. maybe he plays down to the comp? wasn’t impressed earlier this season.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:52 PM
over. down 17, getting embarrassed at home.
impressive performance by gtown
December 29th, 2008 at 8:54 PM
TBL -
The J-School Bowl on ESPN. Lord, I hate Mizzou.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:54 PM
holy shit what a follow
December 29th, 2008 at 9:01 PM
Thabeet has a chance to get to 5 points, woo. Oops, the FT doesn’t go.
So, best team in the country not named UNC?
December 29th, 2008 at 9:08 PM
still think it is connecticut. but guess this just means that the chasm between unc and uconn is much wider than i thought. i highly doubt the 3rd or 4th best ACC team is going to go into the Dean Dome and win. This is assuming Wake is 2nd best.
im going to watch Curry in a hurry on eSPNU instead of the football game. oh, wait – ron franklin has the call? maybe i’ll sip a beer and listen to ron so i remember what college was like.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:13 PM
how can you say that UConn is better than Georgetown at this point?
Hoyas just dominated them in Hartford. AND the only player who got in foul trouble was Monroe. The Hoyas are better coached, more poised, and doing away with the absurd notion that they’re not athletic, which people keep saying, probably because they run the Princeton offense. Imagine how dangerous this team will be when Monroe, probably the best player on the floor tonight, gets more experience.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:19 PM
TBL, Wake is going to be exposed in the ACC. My brother and father went and watched them play ECU, and they came away severely unimpressed. The talent and athleticism is there, but once they actually go up against a team in their class, their lack of defense and overall basketball IQ will kill them. My dad, a man that hates K more than anyone I know(he’s a UNC grad), thinks Duke will destroy Wake.
And I’m sorry, but the #2 team in the nation doesn’t get their shit pushed in on their own home court. Gonzaga looked like the #2 team, then they went and drove off a cliff. So…Pitt?
Also, UNC will drop at least one “wtf?” game at the Dean Dome.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:21 PM
@tall
We got Pitt in Georgetown on Saturday. Sucks cause it’s during christmas break so there won’t be nearly as many students as there were against Memphis, for example, but still, if GU pulls that out, they should be top 5 at least.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:21 PM
The J-School Bowl on ESPN
They showed the Alamo Bowl highlight where Purdue beat K-State.
I think they wanted to provide America with proof that Drew Brees has actually led a team to a comeback victory.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:36 PM
WGW – saying one team is better than another means nothing. if they played a rematch four days from now, i’d still favor uconn. i think calhoun got his ass handed to him, though. great game plan from thompson, and calhoun never really got it. offensively, i have no clue what UConn was doing. whatever it was, it didnt work.
on sheer talent alone, Conn will be fine. mornoe was impressive as hell. on the floor tonight, he looked like a weird hybrid of kevin love’s passing skills, Tim Duncan’s smarts, with the shooting touch of a SF. he looked incredibly different than he did in the game against tennessee.
easy to get up for No. 2 in the country, though. curious to see him against a guy with offensive talent, like Harangody.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:39 PM
I am also a non believer in Wake. They have some great athletes but they are undisciplined and have some bad shot selection and you start scratching your head. Against Richmond they looked like they had no clue what to do for 32 minutes.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:41 PM
currywatch: no points int he first 10 mins … he’s just scored like 10 in the last four minutes. array of drives, three’s, and jumpers. he’s in full clinic mode. fun to watch.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:44 PM
Seeing the “John Kresse Court” for College of Charleston I’m now just picturing Bobby Cremins in the huddle telling his team he doesn’t want Curry just beaten. Out of commission.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:47 PM
@rs27
I was on the way to work and the radio sports guy said “Wake looked absolutely unbelievable in beating ECU” and I was impressed. Then I called my dad the next day and found out the halftime score was a wake forest 4 point lead. People are focusing on the athleticism and undefeated status while ignoring that the best team they’ve played is Baylor and they let terrible teams hang around due to poor coaching/defense.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:48 PM
ESPN had an “NFL Live” report during halftime report of the Alamo Bowl. This is how the announcer described the Eric Mangini firing:
“He lost four of the last five games even though he had Brett Favre at quarterback.”
/now that’s good journalism
December 29th, 2008 at 9:51 PM
haven’t seen enough wake so far this year, but perhaps they just aren’t that interested yet? i’ve seen plenty of duke and dont really like what i see. and this isn’t a bias, just opinion.
but what do i know – i flushed away $$$ on Conn tonight.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:55 PM
Pistons lead 87-80 over the Magic with 1 minute left. Irish is going to be cranky tomorrow.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:59 PM
versus
I know which team I would pick to finish #2 in the ACC, and it ain’t Wake.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:04 PM
Hyperbole much?
December 29th, 2008 at 10:06 PM
TBL – Look at it from the UCONN perspective as well, ought to be easy to get up for the team that has beaten them two years in a row and won two straight Big East Championships.
Anyway, I just think that favoring UCONN in the first place is a mistake. I wouldn’t say that UCONN has gotten much better from last year, and Georgetown certainly has. Monroe is already as good as, and probably will soon be better than Hibbert, and Chris Wright is better than JWall, the only players we lost of note.
just my opinion anyway.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:07 PM
nick – did you watch the game? he looked incredible out there. owned Thabeet, passed great, made a three, drove to the rack, blocked shots … really awesome performance for a freshman
December 29th, 2008 at 10:07 PM
oh, nick – he also picked Price beyond the third point line. just stripped him off the ball and went in for hte layup and one
6-foot-10 freshman doing do that? insanity
December 29th, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Chase Daniel is playing himself into the 7th round of the draft.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:13 PM
WGW – Yup, Hoyas have won three straight in a row in the series.
But the differences between last year and this year:
Conn lost zero starters
GTown lost three starters, two to the NBA lottery
I dont see how you can say the Hoyas got better, and Conn didn’t.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:21 PM
TBL I agree with your argument, but your facts are wrong. Georgetown didnt have a lottery player last year, Hibbert went 17th and Ewing went in the 2nd round.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:28 PM
Who the hell is this ref calling an offensive foul against Curry?
December 29th, 2008 at 10:37 PM
TBL – OK so I don’t know if it matters to you, but I go to GU and pretty much think about our team all the time. Anyway…
1. Monroe is a much more versatile player than Hibbert. He is a ball handler, he is an extremely polished low post player, and has the range to shoot from the outside, Like Hibbert, but he has the quickness and speed to drive and finish consistently, unlike Hibbert. He also passes really well. Monroe, as I said earlier, is at least already as good as Hibbert, and you could argue that he is better without much trouble. Plus, as Bilas said many times, he is literally the perfect big man for the Georgetown system.
2. The guard we lost was Jon Wallace. Good College Player, started every game in his career at Georgetown. He also just got cut from a team in Slovenia. Chris Wright will be playing in the NBA in a few years. Net Gain for the 08/09 Hoyas.
3. We lost Patrick Ewing Jr. True. he’s a freak athlete, and I was sorry to see him go. That being said, we will be able to make up for his minutes with a combination of Julian Vaughn, Jason Clark, and the fact that Monroe will play A LOT more minutes than Hibbert ever did since he was always out with foul trouble or fatigue.
So, of the players we lost, I think our team for this season more than makes up for it. Now, if you disagree with my opinions, fine, but I watch a lot of georgetown bball.
It’s true that UCON(vict) lost zero starters but they aren’t that good to begin with. Witness Thabeet getting owned by a Freshman playing his first road game.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Does Liberty have a shot at the NCAA Tournament? Putting the Curry Brothers in the same building for day 1 of the NCAA Tournament with Gus Johnson along for the ride could be very fun.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:13 PM
Syracuse is playing Columbia?
December 29th, 2008 at 11:20 PM
Wow, Northwestern called for back-to-back holdings.. That should never happen in the 4th quarter. But they just got close to a first down despite that.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:13 AM
UConn just got outworked tonight. I do think G’Town is better than last year for the sole fact that Hibbert was the most overhyped player in the country and Monroe is much more versatile to fill his spot. That being said, I don’t trust Georgetown in the tournament. You don’t know what you’re getting from Summers every night, Monroe is still a frosh and I’m not sold on Wright. I do like Freeman, but as a SU fan I’m just glad Jonathan Wallace is gone. That is going to hurt G’Town come the end of the season.
Just because Wright can play in the NBA doesn’t make him better than Wallace for Georgetown. Gerry McNamara can’t get a sniff of pro ball but I think we know how that turned out.