Georgetown Hoyas fall to Villanova Wildcats at home to make it 10 straight losses

There’s the Big East Conference and then there’s the (Big East plus the) Georgetown Hoyas along with the DePaul Blue Demons. In other words, Big East Men’s Basketball is comprised of 11 teams; 9 of which are competitive and 2 that aren’t. After getting pummeled by the Creighton Bluejays earlier this week in an uncompetitive road game that ultimately amounted to a 22-point loss (72-94), the 2023-‘24 Georgetown Hoyas and its first-year head coach, Ed Cooley, had absolutely nothing to be gleeful about; given the fact that the 1984 NCAA Tournament (/national) champions were (now) owners of a 9-game losing streak.

On Georgetown’s trip back to D.C. from Omaha, the former leader of the Providence Friars found himself in a state of deep reflection; trying to find some way to help his team climb out of their hole. The experienced 54-year-old, whose head-coaching career at the Division 1 college level dates back to 2006 when he became the Fairfield Stags’ head honcho, is a fiery competitor with a long history of winning. Before Cooley accepted his current position, he had 556 games of head-coaching experience over 17 seasons; not to mention he was able to win 334 of those contests and came to Washington D.C. boasting a win percentage of 60.1 (%).

Despite the storied history that precedes Georgetown Men’s Basketball and its 31 NCAA Tournament appearances, the Hoyas of modern times are on the verge of losing their “street-cred” amongst the masses; especially when you consider how they haven’t won a single NCAA Tournament game since 2015 and have just 2 March Madness appearances since (/including) that 2014-‘15 team. Thankfully, Hoyas’ fans won’t be abandoning their team in the next few years now that Ed Cooley has joined them. For now, the Hoyas are on the struggle bus; and although Cooley had the right idea about implementing a slower pace following his team’s loss against Creighton, it wasn’t enough to reverse the trend when they faced the Villanova Wildcats on Friday night in Capital One Arena.

In a bit of a yawner (-game), it was no surprise that the Hoyas and the Wildcats were having trouble scoring the basketball early. With the score tied at 8 (-all) in the game’s first 10 minutes, it was clearly a low-scoring pillow-fight between two teams that aren’t exactly known for their ability to execute on the offensive end. But, Brendan Hausen came to play for the road team; scoring all 12 of his points in the first half including 9 of those 12 in the final 9 minutes of the opening half.

Alongside the Texan sharpshooter’s double-digit scoring output, Hausen pulled down 4 rebounds, recorded 1 steal, made 4 of his 10 shot attempts (all from-3), and saw 24 minutes of action. Joining the 6-foot 4-inch guard in the double-digit scoring department for ‘Nova were TJ Bamba (14 PTS), Eric Dixon (11 PTS), and Justin Moore (10 PTS). Per usual, Villanova wore down their opponent (/G-Town) with their strong defense as opposed to their offense. Leading the home team by 9 points at intermission (28-19), Villanova kept the pedal down during the second half and had a 17-point lead with/ roughly a minute & a half left in the game.

In limiting the Hoyas to just 54 total points, Villanova focused the bulk of its efforts on stopping Georgetown’s top two-scorers; Jayden Epps (17.6 PPG) & Dontrez Styles (13.5 PPG). Making only 6 of their 27 shots in their team’s 10th straight loss, the duo of Epps and Styles never got comfortable against the Wildcats. Along with the fact that the Hoyas’ top scorers were inefficient from the field, they had just 17 combined points and turned the ball over too often; 5 times between the two.

While playing on a bad team is never fun, at least the Hoyas have 1 Big East win. On January 6th, the 2023-‘24 Hoyas defeated DePaul by 3; 68-65. Until further notice, the 2023-‘24 Blue Demons are the only Big East squad without a conference victory. Sure, ‘Nova can make the trip back up I-95 happy they pulled out a win on the road, but beating this bad of a team on any court isn’t going to help their tournament chances. Let’s hope DePaul and G-Town can turn it around in the next couple of seasons.

Betting against Ed Cooley seems unwise.