Before Georgetown knocked off DePaul 81-76 last week, they’d lost their first nine conference games this year. They lost all 19 last season, plus their first game in the Big East Tournament, too. Fun fact: before last week’s win over the Blue Demons, Georgetown’s most recent win over a conference foe was their 2021 Big East Championship Game win against Creighton.
It’s hard to comprehend exactly how far the once-mighty Hoyas have fallen, but this one stat sums it up pretty well — in the 38 years from the formation of the Big East until Patrick Ewing was hired as head coach, Georgetown had a losing record four times. Ewing has done it four times in five years. At 6-16 in year six, he would need something miraculous to avoid a losing record in five out of six years at the helm.
It’s worth noting that after three of the four losing seasons prior to Ewing taking over, the head coach was replaced; the fourth eventually resulted in a coaching change, too, as John Thompson III had losing records each of his last two seasons. Yet in the face of backlash from the fans and boosters still paying attention — apathy seems to have set in, if the minuscule crowds they’re playing in front of is any indication — Ewing remains the head coach.
At 6-16 and 1-10 in the Big East, their NET ranking is currently 242. That’s very important because the cutoff between a Q3 and Q4 road game is 241. There’s high-level talent on this team, and they’re seemingly capable of winning games. You just hope it doesn’t happen against your team, because Q4 losses are lead anchors on your resume.
Most of that talent has come via the transfer portal. Leading scorer Primo Spears comes from Duquesne, perimeter threat Brandon Murray transferred from LSU, big man Akok Akok transferred from UConn, and fellow big man Qudus Wahab transferred back to Georgetown from Maryland.
Primo Spears is at the top of the scouting report. He rarely comes out of the game — he’s played 93% of his team’s minutes this season, eighth-most in all of D1, and with good reason. The 6’3” guard leads the team and the Big East in scoring at 17.1 points per game, and also leads the team in assists at 5.4. He’s scored in double figures 16 times and scored 20 or more eight times. That includes an absolutely ridiculous line in their loss to Xavier — he had a double-double with 37 points and 11 assists on 31 (!) shot attempts. Spears was 12-of-20 inside the arc, 3-of-11 outside the arc, and 4-of-6 from the line.
And those shots inside the arc mostly don’t come at the rim. Spears does the bulk of his damage on mid-range pull-up jumpers, with nearly 60% of his total shot attempts coming on two-pointers away from the rim. It’s a shot he makes nearly half the time (46.3%) and it’s proven difficult for opponents to take away. The ball is in his hands so much that simply being there on the catch isn’t enough — often times the possession starts with the ball in his hands and doesn’t leave until he shoots. He’s taken over one-quarter of the Hoyas shots (26.9%) so far this year and nearly 30% of their possessions end with him either shooting or turning it over.
Brandon Murray averages 14.6 points per game, and is a more balanced offensive scorer, with his shot attempts roughly divided in thirds at the rim (30% of his shots, where he shoots 57%), on midrange jumpers (40% of his shots, though he makes only 36% on these) and on three-pointers (the remaining 30% of his shots come here, and he makes them at a 35% clip). With junior guard Jay Heath still out with an injury, Murray is their top active perimeter threat.
In the middle, 6’11” Qudus Wahab is averaging 10.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in his return to the Hoyas — he began his career at Georgetown, transferred to Maryland, and then transferred back after a coaching change. He’s been a solid big man offensively for the Hoyas, shooting 51% on the year and getting to the line where he shoots 72%. But he’s struggled to defend without fouling, committing 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes.
6’10” Akok Akok is the better shot-blocker, averaging nearly two per game, and the better defender overall. He’s averaging 7.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, and against then-#8 Xavier he had a huge game with 14 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
In spite of that top-end talent, the weaknesses in this Georgetown team are glaring. They shoot the three-pointer poorly (making 31.3%, 302nd in D1) while also defending it poorly (opponents shoot 38.1%, 343rd). In Big East games, those numbers are somehow even worse — they’ve made 29.8% of their own threes and opponents have made a staggering 43.9%. The kicker: opponents aren’t even shooting all that many threes against Georgetown, relatively speaking — just 35.8% of opponents shots have been threes, 7th most in the Big East. They just make the ones they do take at an exceedingly high rate.
Against Big East foes, their effective field goal percentage overall is marginal (48.2%). But defensively? Opponents have a 56.7% effective field goal percentage and an overall efficiency of 117.1. One-hundred-seventeen! That means for every 100 possessions, opponents score 117 points. Every team they play looks like Creighton did against Xavier, in other words. Imagine that.
Worse, their defense gets very little pressure on opponents; in league games their opponents have a turnover on just 12.5% of possessions, and a non-steal turnover on just 5.3% — far and away the lowest numbers in the league. Opponents have an assist on 59.5% of their made baskets overall and 62.5% in league games, showing how easily teams are able to move the ball around against them.
They do block a lot of shots (12.6% of opponent’s shots, 35th most in D1). So while scoring at the rim can be difficult against the Hoyas, scoring from anywhere else hasn’t been much of a problem. With Creighton’s ball movement unlikely to be disrupted by Georgetown’s defense, expect tons of open looks in the midrange and perimeter game. If they knock them down, this could get ugly.
- Tip: 5:30pm
- Venue: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Tom McCarthy and Chris Walker
- In Omaha: Cox channel 234 (SD), 1234 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 643 (SD), 1643 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: CBSSN Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 221; Dish Network channel 158
- Streaming info
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcer: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 380 and on SXM app channel 970
- Georgetown Radio: 99.1 FM
- Announcer: Rich Chvotkin (in his 49th season calling Hoya hoops)
- Simulcast on SiriusXM 381
- The Hoya backcourt of Primo Spears, Brandon Murray and Jay Heath (before his hand injury knocked him out of the lineup) account for 49.4% of the team’s scoring (787 of their 1592 points)
- Brandon Murray has scored in double figures in 14 of the 17 games he has appeared in thus far this season. In a career night at DePaul last week, he had 29 points (his previous high was 21 points against Texas A&M as a freshman at LSU) on 11-for-17 shooting, including a perfect 5-for-5 effort from downtown.
- Jordan Riley moved into the starting lineup after Heath’s injury, and has scored 64 points over those six games, good for 10.7 ppg. He tallied a career-high 18 points on 8-for-12 shooting at Villanova on Jan. 16.
- Creighton has outscored the opposition by an average of 18 points (83.5 – 65.5) during its four-game winning streak, which includes victories over No. 19 Providence and No. 13 Xavier. The Jays have shot 52.2 percent from the field and 81.7 percent at the line during this stretch while also dishing 65 assists against just 35 turnovers. Defensively, Bluejay opponents are shooting 42.1 percent from the field in those four games and have been outscored 171-124 before halftime.
- Creighton has made 49-of-60 free throw attempts (81.7 percent) during its four game winning streak, including a season-best 88.9 percent (8-9) last Saturday vs. Xavier. For the season, Creighton is shooting 74.1 percent as a team from the charity stripe. That’s the team’s best mark since shooting 74.8 percent in 2017-18, and would be the fourth-best figure in Greg McDermott’s 13-year tenure at CU.
- Creighton leads all teams in Big East play with a 10.8 point scoring margin, and it also shares the league lead with six double-digit conference wins this winter. Each of Creighton’s last five victories over Georgetown have come by double-figures, including an 80-66 win at Capital One Arena in 2022 and a 63-48 triumph at McDonough Arena in 2021.
Creighton is 12-9 all-time against Georgetown and has won nine of the last 12 meetings in the series. Creighton is 4-5 on the road agains the Hoyas, but has won the past two meetings in the District.
On February 1, 2012 the 12th ranked Bluejays thumped Illinois State 102-74 to move to 21-2 and 11-1 in the Valley. From Ott’s Thoughts after the game:
“Things started well for Creighton Wednesday, and only got better as the night wore on. Grant Gibbs reached deep into his bag of playground hoops tricks, threw the ball of a defender’s turned back on an inbounds play, and laid the loose ball up for Creighton’s second hoop of the night. The evening ended with Ross Ferrarini hitting back-to-back triples to hit the century mark and fellow Bench Mob member Matt Dorwart knocking down two free throws to push CU’s total to 102 points. In between, the Bluejays treated fans to arguably the best offensive performance in recent program history.
Hyperbole? Hardly. It wasn’t just shooting 56% from the field, 52% from three-point range, and 84% from the free throw line. It was passing up good shots for great ones. It was the effectiveness of almost every lineup combination Greg McDermott put on the court. It was his son, Doug, having a monster game (again), while guards Gibbs and Antoine Young (7 assists apiece) facilitated an efficient offensive machine.
The Bluejays assisted on 22 of 31 made baskets, while committing just 9 turnovers. Led by McDermott’s 25 points (on 9-11 shooting, including a perfect 3-3 from three-point range), six CU players hit double-figures in points. Gibbs added 12 points to his 7 assists and 4 rebounds. Gregory Echenique played only 17 minutes put scored 10 points and grabbed 6 boards. Jahenns Manigat shook off some tenderness in his knee and knocked down 3 of his 4 three-pointers en route to 11 points. Josh Jones scored 10 points off the bench, and Will Artino scored 11 points without missing a shot from the field (3-3) or the charity stripe (5-5).”
The Bottom Line:
Creighton has a 89.6% chance of victory per ESPN’s BPI, and is a 13-point favorite according to Vegas oddsmakers. KenPom predicts a 15-point win. Provided the Jays hit the open looks they’re sure to get, and Primo Spears doesn’t go off for 30+ to keep the Hoyas in the game offensively, CU should win this one handily.
Bluejays 84, Georgetown 69
