Providence coach Keno Davis shudders at the suggestion that No. 7
Georgetown is the worst team the Friars will play over the next two
weeks.
"If it turns out it was the easy game, I'll eat my words,"
Davis said Tuesday night after the Hoyas beat Providence 79-70 in
the first of four straight games the Friars will play against teams
ranked in the top 10. "But there's no reason that team can't go
deep in the NCAA tournament. I hope they do."
Chris Wright scored 21 points, Julian Vaughn scored a
career-high 19 and Greg Monroe had 12 points and a career-high 12
assists for Georgetown. Wright scored 16 points in the second half
as the Hoyas (18-5, 8-5 Big East) erased an eight-point deficit.
Jamine Peterson scored 23 points and Bilal Dixon had a
career-high 16 rebounds for Providence (12-12, 4-8).
The Friars led 47-40 with 15 minutes left before Georgetown
scored 14 of the next 15 points, getting a three-point play from
Wright to tie it and then taking the lead with 12 minutes left.
"Road wins in this league are difficult to come by,"
Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "This was a game where
things were not going well for us in a lot of different ways. We
were extremely frustrated for large parts of that game. That's
because of Providence, that's because of what they were doing,
that's because of their offensive execution and their defensive
tenacity."
Providence outrebounded Georgetown 42-31, but the Friars shot
just 34 percent from the field and 64 percent from the free-throw
line. Players got tangled up under the basket with 16:43 left in
the game, with Monroe and Dixon jawing before the referees sent the
teams to their benches to cool off.
"They really hit the boards," Wright said. "It got very
physical down there. Any way we could we tried to box them out and
try to keep them off the boards."
Georgetown, which according to the RPI has the most difficult
strength of schedule in the nation, was coming off a 103-90 win
over then-No. 2 Villanova on Saturday.
But they will get no sympathy from the Friars.
Providence is in the middle of a 6-of-8 stretch of games
against ranked teams, with the next three against No. 4 Villanova,
No. 5 West Virginia and No. 2 Syracuse. The Friars have already
beaten then-No. 19 Connecticut in Providence and lost at Syracuse.
Davis said he had never heard of a team playing four top-8
teams in a row.
"I think what that shows is the Big East, we're not in a down
year from last year," he said. "I thought our team gave as good as
an effort as we possibly could, and for them to come away with a
win shows why they are the seventh team [AP] in the country."
Providence led by as many as eight points in the second half
before Georgetown came back, tying it on Wright's steal and
fast-break layup with 12 minutes left and taking a 49-48 lead when
he hit the foul shot to convert the three-point play.
Peterson missed two free throws -- Providence missed 12 foul
shots in all -- then Wright made a free throw. After Peterson
missed a 3-pointer, Wright made two more free throws to give
Georgetown a 54-48 lead with 9:40 left. Sharaud Curry hit a
3-pointer and Providence later cut the deficit to 56-54, but never
got any closer.
Providence had a last chance at a comeback in the last 2
minutes when Marshon Brooks made a layup to make it 69-64, then the
full-court pressure forced a baseball pass that just missed the
outstretched fingers of a Friar defender. Monroe caught it instead
and moved in for a layup and foul, converting the three-point play
to give Georgetown a 71-64 lead with 70 seconds left.
