When you lose by 27 to your city's powerhouse team but it's not quite as bad as you thought it would be, there's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooooooood evening AU hoops fans! Well, our fateful road swing has begun, and it has begun just as we expected, with a loss, 73-46 to Georgetown at the Verizon Center. To read the recap, go here, and to find the box score, go here. Honestly, the game wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be. For the firat 8 mminutes or so we hung with the Hoyas pretty closely. We even had a lead! Don't believe me? Here's proof, in two forms!

First, from contributor Vidulicious (5-4):




And then from our own Josh (7-6):


If only the game had ended after the first seven minutes, we would've had the upset of the year! Alas, we had to play the remaining 33 minutes. It was filled with the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY. Stick with us and see what those elements were!


THE GOOD

Nick Hendra - Nick Hendra played a big game today. 37 minutes, a game-high 14 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists. Also important, only 3 turnovers against a very quick and pesky Georgetown team. Hendra has been pretty solid and reliable the past few games, and though things were dicey for him for a while, it seems he's back on the right track.

Riley Grafft - Riley also played 37 minutes. This is particularly impressive against a Big East team. Riley's conditioning continues to impress. He also has a pretty decent line to go along with the minutes; 8 points on 3-7 shooting including 2-4 from beyond the arc. I'm not really sure why he takes so many 3-points for a big man, but if he can keep it at a 50% rate, I won't complain too much. Riley impressively only turned the ball over once and also had 4 rebounds. Very good.

Turnovers - Only 13 of them? Against Georgetown? I'll take that any day of the week. Nice to see us taking better care of the ball. Additionally, no player had more than 3, which is great as well. Definite high point.

Jeff Holton, Jordan Borucki, and Daniel Fisher - Congratulations for getting into the game. I know Fish has been in this season, but we haven't seen him in a while, and he even picked up a bucket today. Jeff and Jordan, glad to see you get some time as well! Makes me wonder if Snodgrass would've gotten some time if he had stayed on for two more games. Ah well. Have to be thankful for what we do have at this point, and I'm happy to see the freshmen get some playing time, even if it means it's because we got killed.

The final score - Consider that LAST year Georgetown beat us 73-49 and this year they beat us 73-46. Then think about our team last year versus this year and consider that Georgetown has a better team this year than last. I'm totally satisfied by the way we hung in. Thanks to Josh for doing the research on this.

Defense against Greg Monroe - Yes Monroe pulled down 13 rebounds, but he was only 3-9 shooting and had 9 points. I'd say that's pretty solid work by Grafft and Lumpkins.

THE BAD (well, kind of)

9 blocks against us - I mean, Greg Monroe is a beast, we all know that, but we were getting our shots blocked all the time. Nasty.

Blake Jolivette and Daniel Munoz - Once again I'm presenting them as a matched set. Why? Because until one of them has a distinguishing performance, they're the freshman guard duo. Unfair? Maybe. But they had similar performances today. Together? 47 minutes, 13 points (which is not awful), 3-13 from the field (which is not so good), 2-6 from behind the arc (which is just okay), 2 turnovers (which is great!), and 6 rebounds (which is average). Alright, do they really deserve to be in the bad column? No, they probably don't. For their first Big East match-ups, they did okay. The 2 turnovers between them is actually really impressive. Overall, aside from shooting efficiency, they did okay. So consider them in the "Average" column, not the bad, for tonight. Good work you two, get them next year!

THE UGLY

Stephen Lumpkins - Listen, I like Stephen Lumpkins. I've got a Lumpkin Patch t-shirt even. But tonight was a truly ugly performance. 1-17. ONE FOR SEVENTEEN from the field. 2 points and 4 rebounds. I mean, I get it, you've got Greg Monroe posting up on you, Lumpkins, but 1-17? And you didn't get to the line at all? NOT ONCE? This is becoming a real problem for Lumpkins, he can't finish his shots. I didn't see the game today, but something I've been noticing is that when he makes his move inside he shifts the ball in his left hand and holds it way out to the side where it's highly susceptible to be poked away. Aside from that, he just cannot get the ball in the rim and has been really poor at drawing the foul too. If you miss 16 shots from the field, you've got to draw, at a minimum, 4-5 fouls as far as I'm concerned. He did not get it done today, and he truly deserves to be in the ugly column.

Our shooting for the game - 16-59 for 27%? I mean, without Lumpkins it would've been much higher I guess, but egads that is nasty. Nay, it's ugly. Hence why it's in this column.

Anyway, that's that. We'll update you soon about the UMBC game this Tuesday, which is the last home game for quite a while. EDIT: Uh, the UMBC game isn't next Tuesday. The Eagles are off until the 16th when we play DePaul, which will be Vlad Moldoveanu's first game. Sorry about that, I got mixed up.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!