Pirates sunk by the good guys

Lakeside - Fantastic Voyage

Hey hey hey the old blue and gray what can you say. A big 74-52 win for the Hoyas. I knew once I entered the arena that my team would win, and I silently predicted a blowout. It happened on a night where all the Hoyas were able to get in the game. At this time of the season to be able to get all your players into the game is very special, and this says a lot about this team. Although they had a couple bad losses they Hoyas managed to pick up the pieces and move on. They're great team when clicking on all cylinders, and I think this will continue. As a matter of fact I know the Hoyas will continue to "click."

The Hoyas came out swinging and again never looked back. The defense was spectacular, and the communication was key.  "We did everything right in the beginning of the game," Nate Lubick said. There was a lull towards the end of the first half (7:56) as Seton Hall's Brian Oliver knocked down a three pointer to make the score 20-13. I was hoping the Hoyas would not blow a thirteen point lead going into the half. Once again, under eight minutes to go until the half, junior point guard Markel Starks (16 pts. 2 assts., 1 stl, 1 reb.) came through in the clutch to put the Hoyas back up by ten 23-13. It was to see the Hoyas reserves total 24 points last night. Super sophomore Otto Porter lead the way in scoring (20 pts. 3 rebs., 3 asst., 4 stls.)

Something I've been waiting for all season long was to see junior guard walk on 
Joe Caprio get into the mix. He did and he expected to play. "No I definitely wasn’t expecting it," Caprio said. "Coach is always telling me to be ready to contribute, so that’s what I tried to do today. I hope I did pretty well.”

As far as playing time, Coach Thompson III acknowledged something he should've been doing  with Caprio. "I probably should have been playing Cap more," said Thompson who has expanded his playing rotation in recent games. Caprio attend Seton Hall Prep in New Jersey. I guess you could say it was a sweet payback from last season's loss to the Pirates. “A bunch of my family members were ragging on me last year, so yeah it was good to beat them."

The Hoyas press continues to be a "pressure cooker" forcing the Pirates to turn the ball over 25 times. "That just happened," Georgetown head coach John Thompson III said of being able to turn the Pirates over 25 times. "I wanted to stay in our press probably a little longer than we had in our last couple of games. But I can't sit here and say that I looked at the tape and said, 'Oh, we're going to turn them over like that.' But our guys did a good job of making that happen."

Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard wasn't too fond of the 25 turnovers his team committed against the Hoyas. "Just to get back to doing what we were doing when we were playing decently," Willard said. "Again, it's tough to defend 25 turnovers — it's deflating. But just erase this game. Kind of keep trying to build a little bit."

Caprio ended up with (4 pts., 6 rebs., 2 asst., 1 stl.) in 12 minutes. Nice Joe Cool! The crowd went into a frenzy when Cap scored. Wow! My highlight of the game is when junior center reserve Moses Ayegba caught one off a rebound and "smashed it." I'd been telling Moses for most of the time he was in the game, "Big Mo, I need a dunk." He did, I went ballistic, I received a text from a friend saying they saw me on TV going crazy when Big Mo slammed it home. Definitely have to give freshman guard David Allen a shout out in knocking down a deep three pointer. I could say that was rather gutsy after Allen had just came down and had his shot blocked, but after that block his confidence never drifted.

Free throws still continue to be impressive for the Hoyas (56.3%) 18-32. This stat has been very steady. Very key! Free throws win championships!  Great job Hoyas! On to the next one! Beat St. John's on Saturday.

Hoyasaxa!

gh