Georgetown Preview
January 22, 2009 09:14 AM | General
January 22, 2009
GEORGETOWN GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The toughest stretch of the season begins tonight at No. 12 Georgetown, followed by games coming up against No. 4 Pitt, St. John’s, No. 9 Louisville and No. 8 Syracuse.
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| Senior Alex Ruoff is West Virginia's leading scorer averaging 16.5 points per game.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Seven of West Virginia’s next nine games are against teams presently ranked in the top 25.
“We know we’re playing Georgetown and Pitt this week and I’d be surprised if they know who we play after this,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We’ve got a hard schedule. We may have as hard a schedule as there is in the league playing Pitt twice and Louisville twice.”
Huggins wants his team to take the approach that the next nine games are an opportunity to make a strong case for the NCAA tournament selection committee.
“You’ve got to look at it as a great opportunity to get quality wins,” Huggins said. “Go beat Georgetown on the road and that’s a quality win. You beat Pitt and that would be a quality win. We’ve got chances – we’ve probably go more chances this year than we did a year ago.”
And it starts with Georgetown tonight. The Hoyas are a young team with just one senior in its starting lineup (Guard Jessie Sapp), but that hasn’t kept Georgetown out of the national rankings with a 12-4 record that includes a 3-2 mark in conference play.
Most recently, the Hoyas dropped a 76-67 road decision at No. 2 Duke last Saturday. Georgetown’s three conference wins are against Connecticut, Providence and Syracuse, with its Big East losses coming at home against Pitt and on the road at Notre Dame where no one wins.
Four of Georgetown’s five starters average double figures, led by 6-foot-8-inch, 236-pound DaJuan Summers’ 15.5-points-per-game average.
Freshman center Greg Monroe, the nation’s No. 1 high school recruit last year, is averaging 13.2 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Monroe has fit in nicely in Coach John Thompson III’s motion system in place of graduated Roy Hibbert.
“He’s really good. He’s 6-10, 250 pounds and he steps out and makes 3s,” Huggins said. “They run a lot of offense through him. I think the most impressive thing about him is how well he passes the ball.”
Sophomores Austin Freeman and Chris Wright join Sapp in the backcourt and both average double figures – Freeman at 13.4 points per game and Wright at 12 points per game.
“They’ve got good players. When you’ve got as many good players as what they have … our league is full of good players,” Huggins said. “We struggle size wise and they’ve not only got Monroe, they’ve got two other guys 6-10. They very rarely play them together but their skill level is very good. There isn’t anybody on that team that wasn’t very highly recruited.”
Georgetown is 9-1 at the Verizon Center this year and West Virginia is just 2-7 against the Hoyas in that building since the facility opened.
“They have been difficult to play there because they have good players. Teams that have really good players make it hard to play in that place,” Huggins said. “There isn’t any magic to the building - I just think they have good players.”
West Virginia (13-4, 2-2) is coming off a pair of wins last week against Marshall and USF. The Mountaineers jumped out to a double-digit first half lead against the Bulls but had to hang on at the end for a 62-59 victory.
Only once in four Big East games has West Virginia managed to score more than 70 points (Seton Hall) and in both of its losses to Marquette and Connecticut the Mountaineers failed to score 60.
“I hope we can make some shots. If we make some shots we’ll be fine,” Huggins said.
The majority of the scoring has come from senior Alex Ruoff (16.5 ppg.) and junior Da’Sean Butler (16.4 ppg.). Freshman Truck Bryant is averaging 10.5 points per game but has failed to score in West Virginia’s last two East games against USF and Marquette.
Huggins is searching for more offense from players like Wellington Smith, Devin Ebanks, John Flowers and Kevin Jones.
“We’re focused on betting better and improving upon the things that we haven’t done very well,” Huggins said.
Huggins admits tonight’s contest presents a stiff challenge because of Georgetown’s great size, athleticism and style of play.
“They play so different so you have to spend a lot of time guarding what they do and try and take away as many easy things as you can from them,” he said.
Tip off is set for 7 pm and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN (Mike Patrick and Doris Burke). MSN’s pre-game coverage begins with the Coliseum Countdown at 6:30 pm.
