Pitt hands Georgetown its fourth league defeat
Georgetown really liked the hand it brought to the Big East table this season. But it's going to need a new one.
Pittsburgh knew every card the Hoyas were going to play Wednesday at Verizon Center, countering perfectly and winning every trick to deal Georgetown a 72-57 defeat in front of 15,712 that wasn't as close as the score indicated.
"We executed on everything," Pitt guard Ashton Gibbs said. "We knew some of their plays, most of their plays, and Coach had us prepared, so I wasn't really surprised by it."
The Panthers were equally destructive at both the offensive end, where Gibbs hit five 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 22 points, and in shutting down the once vaunted Georgetown read-and-react offense, anticipating every screen and cut the Hoyas tried to make.
"I don't want to not give them credit," Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. "So if they had a meticulous film session, God bless them, it showed up out on the court. That being said, we have option A, B, C, D. We have counters to everything. ... We have to do a better job of getting to our second, third, fourth option possibly, getting back to the mentality of, we just want a good shot."
Instead, the Hoyas (12-5, 1-4 Big East) missed 14 of 23 from the field and another 10 out of 14 free throw attempts in the first half. By the time Austin Freeman (12 points) hit his first 3-pointer, Georgetown was down by 15 points. When he hit his second, it was the Hoyas' final basket of the contest.
The Panthers (16-1, 4-0) put the game out of reach early with a 19-4 run that included three consecutive Gibbs 3-pointers after Chris Wright (14 points) picked up two fouls in seven seconds.
Booed heading in halftime down 41-24, Georgetown tried to up the tempo after the break but struggled to string together consecutive defensive stops while Pittsburgh scored seven of its eight second-half field goals in the paint and added 22 points at the line.
The Hoyas are off to their worst start in Big East play since 1998-99.
"It's not a situation that any of us envisioned that we were going to be in," Wright said. "But at this point, we can't do nothing about it. You gotta step up, and we gotta make plays to win games. It's no time for us to be, basically, acting like punks. We gotta step up."