It’s hard to say what was more brutal, the way that Georgetown collapsed against South Florida, or the way the Hoyas said so little about it afterward it was almost as if they were trying to pretend it didn’t happen.
“I don’t want anything that comes out of here to make it seem like all the credit in the world doesn’t go to USF. They came in here, they executed. They came in here. They stayed focused. They went through a first half where Jones, they kind of kept him the bag and they stuck with their stuff, and eventually he got loose and so everything about that game, you have to give credit to them and what they did as opposed to what we did or didn’t do.”
That’s how Georgetown head coach John Thompson III answered my question about what changed after Chris Wright’s layup had given the Hoyas a 39-31 lead early in the second half. South Florida went on a 15-3 run from there.
Oh, right. He did say, “We fell out of rhythm.” And Dominique Jones, who didn’t score until the 8:25 mark of the first half, had 29 points over the game’s final 29 minutes.
What else happened? How about Greg Monroe picked up his second and third fouls in the span of one second, too.
“I didn’t change anything [after the fouls],” said Monroe. The only thing that didn’t change was his number of rebounds the rest of the game, as he didn’t get a single board in the second half.
“We take pride in controlling the things we can control,” said Thompson. “There’s a lot you cannot control, and today, just overall, we didn’t control the things we can control, be it foul shots, be it some of those turnovers.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, because the Hoyas did miss 6 of their final 8 free throw attempts. Monroe, Austin Freeman and Jerrelle Benimon also had four turnovers apiece.
But confusion still reigns.
“I don’t think we played well in the first half, at all,” said Thompson after his team made 14 of their first 21 shots and led by 13 points with 2 minutes to go before halftime.
So the Hoyas were bad when they were ahead then didn’t know what was going on when they fell behind? Strange answers for a team that felt like it was on the cusp of Final Four territory after last weekend’s win. Wait a sec, we might be onto something…
“I don’t exactly know what happened tonight,” said Monroe. “We definitely weren’t looking backwards [at Duke], and we weren’t looking forward [at Villanova], but as a team, we have to be more focused to win games like this.”
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