Georgetown Hoyas Highlight Dangers of Big East with Roller Coaster Week

In the Big East, if you're not prepared to give your maximum effort for 40 minutes on any given night, your team is capable of being knocked off, no matter who you are.

Teams in the Big East don't care about the name on your jersey, or how many league championships you've won, or what your season record is.  Teams in the Big East, no matter how their season has gone, go into every game legitimately believing that they can end up victorious.

Georgetown and their fans were harshly reminded of that fact last Wednesday, when unranked, unheralded USF, led by junior Dominique Jones, came to D.C. and snapped the Hoyas' 11-game winning streak at the Verizon Center, giving the Hoyas a harsh wake-up call in the process.  

Jones, who had averaged 37 points-per-game over his past three games, lit up the listless Hoyas in the second half, leaving Georgetown fans wondering whether or not that blowout of Duke four days before was simply a mirage.

Moreover, after the Verizon Center had been rocking with 20,000 "Gray-ed Out" fans against Duke, the fan support against USF was minimal, at best.  The team couldn't feed off the crowd's energy because, well, there was no energy, Jones went to work, and the rest is history.

But the Hoyas, who needed to prove their place as legitimate national contenders after turning in up-and-down performances as of late, turned the corner and brought it hard  against then-No. 2 Villanova.  

The heart-attack Hoyas were gone, and these Hoyas looked like they had finally learned to deal with the rigors of the Big East. 

Just when the Hoyas couldn't be more hungry for a win, two feet of snow was dumped upon the nation's capital right in time for the Hoyas' matchup with 'Nova.

Somehow, 10,000 screaming fans made it through the torrential blizzard-like conditions to cheer on the Hoyas, and they responded.  After hopping up in the student section during warmups to thank the fans for making it out, the Hoyas started raining buckets on Villanova for two straight hours.

The man of the hour on Saturday was previously unheralded sophomore Jason Clark, who didn't miss a shot in the first half on his way to finishing with 24 points in the game.  Clark knocked down six of seven three-point attempts, including all four of his in the first half, and boosted Georgetown to a 50-31 halftime lead.

The Hoyas didn't stop in the second half.  After shutting Scottie Reynolds down in the first half and holding him to five points, Reynolds exploded out of the gates in the second half, on his way to 19 second-half points.

But Georgetown's Austin Freeman wasn't having any of Reynolds' heroics on Saturday.  When Reynolds would knock down a clutch three that threatened to narrow G'town's lead to single digits, Freeman would run right up the court and drain a counter three, as if to say, "Not today, Scottie."  

The Hoyas never let the Wildcats within single digits in the second half and left the Verizon Center with their most impressive win of the season, beating 'Nova 103-90 .

As USF proved three days before, no win was an easy win in the Big East, and while a Feb. 18 date with Syracuse loomed in the distance, the Hoyas first had to turn their focus to a date on the road with Providence on Tuesday.

In the first half and the beginning of the second half, it appeared that the Hoyas could be en route to another USF-like upset, as the Friars held a 47-40 lead at one point in the second half over the seventh-ranked Hoyas.

But unlike in the USF game, the Hoyas kept their calm, worked the ball to Monroe, and let the big man work his magic.  Monroe responded with one of his best games as a Hoya (and certainly most dynamic), as he recorded a rare double-double for a big man: one with points and assists.  

Monroe ratched up 12 points, seven rebounds, and 12 assists, consistently dissecting the Providence defense to find the cutting man for an easy basket.  Julian Vaughn was a main recipient of Monroe's passing, as he racked up a career-high 19 points mostly on easy dunks and lay-ups facilitated by Monroe.

In the end, the Hoyas finished 2-1 in this three-game stretch, and had you told any Hoya fan that they'd finish 2-1 in this stretch, they'd be happy.  Tell them that that loss didn't come at the hands of Villanova, and they'd realize that the win against 'Nova (especially the comfortable win it was) far outweighed the close loss to one of the middling Big East teams.

What it means in the long run: The Hoyas assuredly hear this every day from coach John Thompson III, but they must continue to take their schedule one game at a time. 

No more speculating about what a win against Syracuse would do to NCAA seeding when you've got two games in front of you.  No more coming out listless for inferior opponents and acting completely surprised when they start knocking down difficult shots.  

And for the love of God, no more cheap fouls.  (But it's the Big East, so Lord knows that won't happen.  Thanks, Villanova.  Keep letting teams shoot 50 free throws .)

As they proved against Villanova, this Hoyas team is capable of beating nearly any team in the nation on any given night.

And as they proved against USF, this Hoyas team can lose to any team in the nation on any given night as well.

If the Hoyas can manage to stay modest, hungry, and keep up their strong team chemistry, there's no telling what this team is capable of doing into March.

But if they lose their focus...tell them to remind themselves of the 2007-08 Hoyas, Stephen Curry, and the pain of a second-round KO after back-to-back Big East regular season championships.