Georgetown came into their home game with American looking to correct some things coming off a win against LaSalle.
At the top of the list, protect leads.
Coming into the today’s game, Georgetown had a halftime lead in three consecutive games and had won just one. Make that four games.
The Hoyas (3-3) had a 40-30 lead against American at the half. Just like Northwestern, Loyola Marymount, and LaSalle, the Eagles dominated the second half in their 74-70 upset win.
“This is four games now where we’ve had the lead going into halftime,” said head coach Patrick Ewing. “In the second half, we don’t do things we need to do to get a win,”
That was on full display in the second half. When Primo Spears wasn’t making bad decisions, the Hoyas defense was having all kinds of issues guarding American’s Princeton based offense.
Sure, Brandon Murray didn’t play for Georgetown but arguably, American’s best player, Colin Smalls, didn’t play for the Eagles.
The Eagles managed to shoot 59.3% in the second half by simply running their offense. Georgetown shot 25% in the second half and at times their offense looked like a bad AAU game on a given weekend in during the summer.
Whether Ewing wants to admit it or not, Qudus Wahab came up small against American’s Jermaine Ballsinger Webb. This is an issue that Wahab had at Maryland. When he plays against someone his size, he struggles.
The non-conference schedule was supposed to be full of on-paper wins. Instead, the Hoyas already has three losses and they haven’t played Texas Tech. Things could get ugly against the Red Raiders.
This loss could be the worst loss in the Ewing Era. Where does this go from here? Who knows.
