Hoyas at WVU, Dec. 6, 2024

Like a couch in Morgantown, the Section 104 text thread was ablaze this past Friday night as Georgetown hit the road to take on West Virginia. Unfortunately, the Hoyas’ shooting stats did not mirror our fire.

Georgetown fell 73-60 to the Mountaineers, who comfortably covered the 8.5-point spread. It was a tale of two halves.

First Half: Are We Back?

Before the game, I offered the extraordinary insight that Georgetown would have to make threes in order to win this game. Jayden Epps seemingly heard me and nailed a three 30 seconds after the tip. Even better is that the three came off an offensive rebound from Drew Fielder.

I was pleased with some of the offense early in the first half. The Hoyas ran two backdoor cuts within the first two minutes. Neither worked. But it was nice to see instinctual movement that led to quality shots. 

The interior passing from the bigs was very good. Thomas Sorber made a tremendous hustle play, taking the ball away from a West Virginia defender for an offensive rebound and assisting on a dunk by Fielder at the 16:13 mark. Fielder made a terrific cut to the basket to receive a pass at the 12:37 mark and was fouled. One of the plays of the game was a pass from Sorber to Jordan Burks cutting along the baseline for a jam at 6:31.

Less good were the five turnovers in the first four minutes. “Yuck,” as Hainesy put it. Sorber committed a foul two and a half minutes into the game. That foul would prove costly in the second half, when the big man was in foul trouble. Some of those calls were questionable.

I didn’t love the guard play in the first half. Malik Mack was a non-entity until he hit a big three with 1:31 left in the half – and proceeded to pick up an absolutely garbage technical foul call afterward. He did finish the game with 10 points but on 4-14 shooting. Micah Peavy also struggled in the first half, scoring no points. Epps did play well, with 13 first half points.

Halftime score, 30-28. I would’ve taken that result 100 times out of 100 if offered pre-game.

Second Half: We Are Not Back.

The Hoyas started off the second half reasonably well. They extended their lead to six at the 17:20 mark. Sorber picked up his third foul at the 14:24 mark, with the Hoyas up by three. That was probably the turning point in the game. Fielder hit a layup at 14:04, and then the Hoyas didn’t score again until the 8:16 mark – an almost six-minute drought.

It’s concerning how dependent this team is on their freshman center. When he’s not on the floor, the Hoyas have a tendency to descend into “hero ball.” Epps missed a wild layup at 10:56 and a three at 10:34.

The Hoyas missed a lot of bunnies in the final 12 minutes or so. I count seven on ESPN’s play-by-play log from 12:48 on.

Georgetown continued to fight after the under-eight. Peavy had a rough game offensively but played some terrific defense, particularly on Tucker DeVries at the 6:35 mark. 

(How is DeVries on the Wooden Award watch list? His 15 points were quiet. I was much more impressed by the Mountaineers’ Javon Small, who had a game-high 26 and was smooth all over the court.)

Another great defensive sequence at the 5:27 mark led to a stop and two free throws from Epps to cut the lead to five with five minutes left. It never got closer. 

After the Buzzer

West Virginia played good transition defense, especially in the second half. But the Hoyas’ offense just wasn’t good enough Friday night. 

The three playmakers – Mack, Epps, and Peavy – shot a collective 12-35. Ten points on 14 shots for Mack and 4 points on 7 shots for Peavy were particularly rough. Eight assists on 22 made field goals is not ideal, either. 

Fourteen turnovers is not great, but ten over the final 35 minutes is respectable. West Virginia committed 12 turnovers, so the differential was not lopsided.

I’d love to see Epps handle the ball less. He has been a joy to watch when he’s played lockdown defense and has run off screens for catch-and-shoot threes or immediate drives to the basket. When he catches the ball and stops to assess or think, the offense slows to a halt, and more often than not, a rough possession follows.

Peavy played all 40 minutes; I am concerned about that workload. Coach Cooley clearly trusts him, and I’m generally pleased with Peavy’s decision-making and play. But I think potential over-usage of Peavy bears watching. (Mack played 39 minutes, and Epps played 35. That workload is not sustainable.)

I was pleased with Fielder’s performance; after some early season worries, I am optimistic about his role on this Hoyas team. He scored eight points; if he can live in that 10-points-per-game range, the Hoyas will be in good shape.

The lack of contributions from the bench is concerning. On the broadcast, ESPN flagged that Georgetown was 324th of 356 teams in bench points. Yikes. Jordan Burks played 15 minutes and logged just 2 points. Caleb Williams continues to be a promising seventh man; he contributed 6 points. It would be terrific if he can become a reliable contributor as a freshman. 

Misc.

• A malfunctioning shot clock was a key plot line in the first half. The broadcast’s color man was doing his best to assemble a sizzle reel of jokes to try to get himself promoted from ESPN2. "Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?" I chuckled. Vinci with a terrific “Christmas Vacation” GIF pull in the text thread.
• I hope the in-game operations staff for Georgetown was paying attention to West Virginia’s Three-Barreled T-Shirt Cannon. It’s time for a t-shirt distribution arms race in Washington.