Big East Basketball Power Rankings: Seton Hall on top, Butler recovering

Georgetown has dropped three straight games over the past couple of weeks to drop to 12-9 (2-6 BE) on the season. This has been disappointing considering the Hoyas’ relatively strong performances during non-conference play and their porous defense is the main reason for that. Georgetown ranks dead-last in conference-only defensive efficiency through eight games and by a fairly significant margin.

Their over-helping defense yields a ton of wide-open 3-point looks and that will not work in this conference considering the sharpshooting abilities of teams such as Creighton, Marquette, and Villanova. All of those teams, in addition to a few others, have the ability to absolutely light it up from beyond the arc and feature shooters that will make the Hoyas pay when left open. Butler’s Sean McDermott was the most recent example of this.

Georgetown still has NCAA Tournament at-large potential but it absolutely needs to clean up its defense in order to make that happen. It will be impossible for the team to hear its name called on Selection Sunday without winning with more consistency in conference play.

Georgetown will play three of its next five games at home and this will be a crucial stretch for the team. The Hoyas’ home matchup with Seton Hall on Feb. 5 could have a major impact on their postseason hopes. Their best wins-to-date are over Syracuse and Creighton.