Hoyas Too Hot To Handle

19th Jan 2008

Georgetown 84
Notre Dame 65

Rough game for the Irish. They couldn’t establish any type of rhythm throughout the entire game and Georgetown took advantage of it. The Hoyas were unstoppable all day and played outstanding on defense. Notre Dame had very few open shots or layups the whole afternoon. Overall, Georgetown destroyed Notre Dame and it wasn’t very close.

From the very start of the game it appeared that Harangody was intimidated by the 7′2″ Hibbert. It became obvious that the six inch height difference was going to have a large impact on his play. Roy Hibbert was easily shooting over everyone on Notre Dame and they had to resort to fouling him. This was a mistake because he was incredibly hot from the free-throw line today, making 7 of 9, much better than his season average. Hibbert scored 13 of his 21 points in the first 8 minutes of the first half. Even when Harangody forced a mismatch, the Irish couldn’t get him the ball and he only scored 13 points the entire game, 7 of which were from free-throws. Luke shot 3 of 14 from the field and pulled down eight rebounds as he fouled out of the game with 1:49 left.

Kyle McAlarney also had an upsetting performance, shooting 4 of 15 for only 10 points. He never went to the free-throw like and had little to no impact at any point of the game. Tory Jackson as well provided minimal help for the Irish with his 7 points and terrible three-point shooting. Notre Dame was 7-26 from behind the arc, a low percentage of 26.9%. Compared to Georgetown who were 8-22 a percentage of 36.4% from three. As I stated previously, Notre Dame needed to shoot well from three, and didn’t, one of the many reasons for the lopsided loss.

As a team, Notre Dame’s defense struggled greatly against the Georgetown offense. They started off playing man-to-man, but had to change five minutes into the first half. The went to the zone which didn’t help at all and than eventually to a full-court-press zone. They tried doubling which did not work out well either because they left someone else wide open. Georgetown would either have an easy shot down low or a wide open jump shot outside. If the Hoyas actually missed a shot, they would get it right back because the Irish had trouble rebounding the ball the entire first half. No one was boxing out or hustling for the ball. Notre Dame seemed out-of-whack throughout the day and their effort was not there. Georgetown out-hustled the Irish all afternoon and left Notre Dame with no chance.

The Hoyas had a 15-0 run in the first half which led to the 13 point deficit at half time. The Irish trailed 38-25 and only shot 30% from the floor, an embarrassing number. It never got any better the second half as they finished with a 31.7 team shooting percentage, making 20 of 63 shots. According to the stats, Notre Dame did out-rebound Georgetown 35-33, but it did not seem like it whatsoever. Either way Summers and Hibbert of the Hoyas dominated down low on both sides of the court and were no match for the Fighting Irish defense.

In conclusion, the Irish move to 13-4 (3-2) on the year with 21st ranked Villanova up next. I will be attending the game at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia and will try and get some pictures taken. Notre Dame will take on the Wildcats and try and capture their first Big East away game, a strenuous task. Now we need to put this game in the past and hope the Irish can rebound from a tough loss again, just like they did after losing to Marquette. As always, Go Irish!

Get this post on NDLNA

1 Comment