NEW YORK – The Georgetown University men's basketball team couldn't contain a second-half surge and fell 63-58 to the St. John's University Red Storm on Tuesday evening at Madison Square Garden in New York. With the loss, Georgetown slides to 12-5 on the season and 3-3 in conference play while St. John's improves to 15-3 overall with a 6-1 mark in BIG EAST action.
ON THE RECORD
"We got to do a better job protecting the ball and executing when it counts. Normally, our teams late in the game are really good at executing … There's got to be pride when you're in that game. There's got to be some emotion that's connected to wanting to win. And I thought the better team won today. They willed themselves to win. I think the crowd really helped them. But we'll bounce back. We're not very healthy right now. We haven't had the same lineup since December 14, when we played Syracuse. Not an excuse, but we're having a tough time scoring the ball right now. Again, we lost the game when we gave up how many points - 63? Come on, man, this should have been a 15-point win, giving up 63 points on the road, right? Gotta credit their defense though, they did a hell of a job. They made plays when they had to make them, turned us over when they had to turn us over, made big shots."
- Head Coach
Ed Cooley
HOYA HIGHLIGHTS
- Micah Peavy led a trio of Hoyas in double figures with 21 points on 9-for-20 shooting. Malik Mack and Curtis Williams Jr. followed with 13 and 11, respectively.
- Drew Fielder led on the glass with 12 boards followed closely by Thomas Sorber with 10.
- Mack paced the offense with six assists while Sorber tallied a game-best three blocks. Peavy registered three steals for the Hoya defense.
- Georgetown shot 24-for-58 (41.4%) from the floor and 7-for-10 (70%) from the charity stripe.
- GU outrebounded the Red Storm 44-38.
ST. JOHN'S HIGHLIGHTS
- St. John's shot 23-for-66 (34.8%) from the floor and 8-for-24 (33.3%) from beyond the arc.
- RJ Luis Jr. led SJU with 19 points on 7-for-19 shooting from the floor. Aaron Scott, Kadary Richmond and Zuby Ejiofor rounded out those in double figures with 14, 10 and 10, respectively.
- SJU forced 19 GU turnovers on 10 steals while managing five blocks for the game.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Despite the Red Storm getting on the board first, it was a Mack jumper that sparked a 17-1 run over 6:45 to take the 17-3 lead at 11:11. It was a balanced effort with points coming from four different players, including four apiece from Mack and Sorber.
- Georgetown kept the foot on the gas as a Curtis Williams Jr. bucket followed by a Peavy fastbreak dunk to push the Hoyas to their largest lead at 15 (35-20) with 2:43 remaining in the frame.
- The Red Storm tallied five unanswered to cut the gap to 10 before both squads traded buckets to close the frame and send both teams into the locker room with the Hoyas up 37-27.
- The second half started as an inverse of the first with the Blue & Gray tallying two buckets, one each from Curtis Williams Jr. and Mack, before an SJU 19-2 run gave the home team the three-point advantage. A Peavy bucket ended the run before a Fielder dunk swung the lead back to the Hoyas (47-46, 11:33).
- The squads would trade runs down the stretch but a St. John's triple pushed the lead to four (59-55) with 2:07 to play. A Peavy tip-in with 41.9 seconds on the clock made it a one-possession game (61-58) before Georgetown called its last timeout.
- That's as close as the Hoyas would get as St. John's completed the comeback to take the 63-58 win at the final whistle.
UP NEXT
Georgetown returns to action on Friday, January 17 as the Hoyas host DePaul at Capital One Arena. Tipoff in the District is scheduled for 8 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network with Dave Ryan calling the play-by-play and Steve Lappas and Roy Hibbert providing analysis. The game can be heard locally on Team 980 with Rich Chvotkin, in his 51st season as the Voice of the Hoyas, calling the action.
