GW received a taste of its own defensive medicine Saturday night, and it certainly wasn’t sweet.
In the battle of cross-town rivals, Georgetown (6-2) came out on top, defeating the host Colonials (4-3) by a final score of 70-54. Georgetown was able to achieve exactly what head coach Jonathan Tsipis’ defense has been successful at this season: forcing uncomfortable situations and continuously hounding opponents. Using a full-court press for the game’s entirety, the active Hoyas defense lead to 30 GW turnovers and 27 points off those turnovers.
“That’s the one thing Georgetown does a really good job of, is they keep coming after you,” Tsipis said. “[Georgetown head coach] Keith [Brown] has them really playing at that high level no matter what their role is offensively. They’re active, they have their hands going, and they’re really going to force you into situations to make you uncomfortable.”
And uncomfortable the Colonials were indeed, playing much of the game at a frantic pace as they tried to get the ball into the half court. Even when they did successfully break the press, a mirage of over-the-head lob passes to find open teammates eliminated any chance of an offensive rhythm.
At the half, the score was tied just 33-33, with all signs of momentum pointing to GW- despite it having given up a 10 point lead with six minutes and 27 seconds left to play in the first. They were shooting 46.2 percent from behind the arc, mostly due in part to graduate student forward Tara Booker, who was 4-5 from three and scored 14 of her 20 total points in the first half.
When action began in the second half though, all of that momentum and confidence immediately switched hands to the Hoyas.
“They did a great job coming out of the locker room in the second half and making sure they were on the attack,” Tsipis said. “They were aggressive, they got to the free throw line, they got to the rim, and you could just see the momentum change on the aggressive nature we had in the first half.”
Georgetown erupted for a 17-4 run, and found itself with a 52-37 lead. Its press defense came out even more aggressive and brought out the flaws in GW’s offense that had been masked by impressive first-half shooting. As shots stopped falling for the Colonials, they continued to settle for outside jumpers- unable to attack the lane and be effective on the inside. For the game, Georgetown outscored GW 32-6 in the paint, something Tsipis attributed not to the Hoya’s height advantage, but to their higher level of activity.
On the opposite end, as a team all year which has relied on pressure defense to score, GW couldn’t get anything going in transition. Despite forcing 25 Hoya turnovers, they scored only 16 points off turnovers and had a mere four fast break points. This again, for Tsipis, pointed to the aggressiveness disparity between the teams and the two halves.
“I think it goes back to what we were able to force defensively in the first half where we got some easy baskets and transition points,” Tsipis said. “And I think that was the difference for us in the two halves. We faced a full defense almost every single time, and even after we broke the press, we got too deep into the shot clock and didn’t react well off of that.”
In addition, Georgetown more than doubled the number of GW’s free throw attempts, going 19-21 from the line. Ten of those free throws came from senior guard Sugar Rodgers, who was perfect at the charity stripe, and finished with a game-high 22 points. She was one of four Hoya players to finish with double-digit points.
With 6:05 left to play, Georgetown led by a game-high 21 points. In a last minute effort, Tsipis went back to a full-court press of his own, and even though it caused three straight Hoya turnovers, GW’s inability to get easy buckets put an end to its hopes. Frustrations boiled over in the games final seconds as GW’s senior forward Shi-Heria Shipp and Georgetown’s Andrea White both received technical fouls and were ejected from the game after getting into a scrum.
“When you don’t attack the zone and find the gaps, which was the game plan going into this, you get lulled into a slow kind of pace where you’re just swinging the ball around the outside,” Booker said. “I think if we would’ve attacked the gaps a lot better, got some touches on the inside, and really worked more inside-out, I think that would’ve helped us be more successful.”
Looking ahead, the Colonials have a week off to prepare for their next game against another District rival, American. Unfortunately, the team will have to do so without fifth year senior guard Brooke Wilson, who is confirmed to have a torn-ACL and will miss the remainder of the season.
“You never want to see a player get hurt, but it leads to an opportunity then for other people on the floor,” Tsipis said. “They’re asking themselves to do a little bit more everyday in practice so they’re used to that role, and that’s kind of contagious.”
