NEW YORK – (Staff Report from Official News Release0 – On a night that saw the BIG EAST Tournament feel like old times, packed house of 17,163 and three gripping games with outstanding individual performances and renewed rivalries.
Georgetown travelled to the Garden knowing their last victory against a Big East opponent came in last year’s BIG EAST Tournament title game, a mere 362 days ago. During the season, the Hoyas held a halftime lead against a conference foe in just three games and never by more than three points. And last night’s three-point lead over Seton Hall was its first at the half since Feb.9 against DePaul.
The Pirates came into the BIG EAST Tournament as the conference’s hottest team, winning their final five straight and eight of their last 10. They had just logged their sixth 20-win season in the past seven years and the Pirates kind of had the Hoyas number of late, having won 12 of the last 16 against Georgetown.
So it should have been little more than a walk in the park for the Pirates, no?
Um, no. And the Pirates should have known as much as they had just played the Hoyas a week ago and needed to rally late to take down Georgetown in a five-point win on The Hall’s Senior Night. So it should have come as no surprise that the third tilt of the season between the Pirates and Hoyas would once again go down to the wire as it did. But the Pirates used an 11-3 run over the final 4:38 to rally from a four-point deficit and pull out a hard-fought 57-53 victory.
The Pirates (21-9) move on to face No. 3 seed UConn in Thursday’s quarterfinals. The Pirates and Huskies split the season series with Seton Hall winning, 90-87, in overtime on Jan. 8 before UConn evened the score with a 70-65 win on Feb. 16.
A three-pointer by Jamir Harris with 40.3 seconds to play gave the Pirates the lead for good at 55-53. But the Hoyas were not about to go quietly. With 27 seconds to play, Georgetown’s Collin Holloway had a wide open look on a three-pointer from the corner, but his shot clanged off the rim and right to teammate Donald Carey. But Carey’s attempt at a putback to tie the game was squashed when The Hall’s Ike Obiagu blocked his seventh shot of the game.
But after Seton Hall’s Alexis Yetna misfired on a free throw with 20.2 seconds to play, Georgetown had one more opportunity to either tie or win the game in the final seconds. But Carey made an errant pass to Kaiden Rice with six seconds to play and Jared Rhoden sank two free throws with two seconds left to ice the win for the Pirates.
Rhoden finished with 17 points to lead the Pirates while Myles Cale added 14. Freshman Aminu Mohammed was tops for the Hoyas with 12.
Afterwards, Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard credited his team’s poise with helping to pull out the victory over a feisty bunch of Hoyas.
“What’s great about this group is that they never get rattled,” Willard said. “We got down four and they understood what we had to do and it’s nice having that veteran presence.”
That’s six straight wins for the Pirates who now turn their attention to the third-seeded Huskies, who will be coming at The Hall with BIG EAST All-First Teamers R.J. Cole and Adama Sanogo. The Huskies have also won six of their last seven coming into the tournament.
“The biggest thing is we rebounded in the second half and in the first half they really kicked our butts on the boards,” Willard said. “So going against a very physical UConn team, we’re going to have to rebound the basketball.”