Big East Basketball Power Rankings: Seton Hall, Villanova leap ahead

Georgetown dropped both of its games during this past week to fall to just 2-5 in conference play. While losses to Marquette (at home) and Xavier (on the road) are not resume-killers, the Hoyas will eventually need to string together some Big East wins in order to continue to remain in the NCAA Tournament conversation. There is hope for that coming soon, though, as the Hoyas will play three of their next four games at home. This stretch includes matchups with Butler and Seton Hall and that could be a blessing or a curse.

Since the beginning of conference play, the Hoyas have been the worst defensive team in the league. They are consistently surrendering open looks from 3-point range and their opponents have made them pay at an extremely high rate. Georgetown’s perimeter defense will absolutely need to improve as the Big East season continues as it cannot continue to allow teams to shoot 38.6% on a high volume of attempts and expect to win games.

Their offense was thankfully enough to counteract that at home against Creighton but that won’t be the case all that often. Georgetown can score with the best of them but its defense has to make substantial strides in order to push the team to new heights. 3-point defense has been an issue all year long as it doesn’t appear to be improving much.

Coming out ahead on this upcoming stretch with contests mostly coming in DC will be absolutely essential for the Hoyas.