LINKS: Can the Georgetown Hoyas Spoil Someone Else’s Season for Once?

This has to have been a tough season for the student-athletes of your Georgetown Hoyas men’s basketball team (9-20, 2-16), and these last two games before the BIG EAST Tournament could really go either way in terms of energy and effort. Hopefully the Hoya faithful will be treated to another solid stretch of fun-to-watch basketball over these last two games against Providence (Tuesday in DC) and St. John’s (MSG on Saturday). After all, it is March.

After the seriously strong start against Xavier, the Hoyas reverted in the second half to poor ball movement and lousy defense. The question is whether fans saw a glimpse of what Georgetown might be able to do next season or merely a hot-shooting apparition against a struggling Musketeers squad. We may not know until next December or January.

Georgetown should play like they want to spoil someone’s bubble hopes in these last games, but the collapse to Xavier (among others) reflects that another win is not likely in the cards. The Hoyas simply cannot sustain great shooting enough to withstand the physical and strategic adjustments by BIG EAST opponents. The Hoyas can try to race any team in this conference to 80 points, but that might only work against one opponent. This humble lunch blog contributor has been beating the drum about Georgetown’s defense having metrics point to a decline from last year, where it set record lows.

In the post-game press conference after Xavier, Cooley was asked, “What is the answer to [fixing the defense] … ” and he flatly replied “Recruiting.”

It’s disappointing to think that personnel is the driving factor for defensive failings—be it mental, physical, and/or team-chemistry limitations—but with two games left, this is where we are. There’s simply no use in criticizing the staff for coming up shorthanded in building this roster. Hopefully they learned their lesson with purposefully leaving scholarships empty.

Cooley likened the defense on Saturday night to “old ass men” trying to guard out there, and he’s not wrong. But can such a defense be turned around before November?

Adding a rim…