Notre Dame Knocks Off Georgetown 73-67
Johnny McDermott Wednesday 07, January 2009
#13/13 Notre Dame (11-3, 2-1) 73, #9/10 Georgetown (10-3, 1-2) 67
The Fighting Irish rebounded from a brutal performance in a road loss to St. John's with a hard-fought 73-67 victory over the Georgetown Hoyas Monday night. (Jr. PF #44) Luke Harangody turned in a dominating performance with 31 points and 11 rebounds despite being saddled with 4 fouls for almost the entire second half. Freshman center Greg Monroe scored 21 points and had 11 rebounds for Georgetown to account for his first career double-double. This game was an evenly matched contest in the box score but the Irish controlled the game, never trailing after the 8:12 mark of the first half and opening up an 11-point halftime lead that the Hoyas were never able to come back from. The Irish played infinitely better than they did at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, at least some of which has to come from the confidence that this team has playing at the Joyce Center. BYU's home loss at the hands of Wake Forest last Saturday night gave the Irish the longest active home winning streak in the country and the Irish extended that streak to 44 games on Monday night. This victory also ended a 5-game losing streak to the Hoyas and put Notre Dame's home-court Big East winning streak at 19 games, 1 shy of the record set by Pittsburgh. The defeat of Georgetown left Rutgers as the only team in the Big East that the Irish have not defeated at the Joyce Center during this winning streak.
The game got off to a sloppy start for both teams and Harangody opened the scoring with a jumper at the 18:29 mark to give the Irish a 2-0 lead. Greg Monroe answered with a basket off a putback to tie the game. Harangody then got called for his first foul, a borderline call on a charge that gave the Hoyas the ball back. Chris Wright drained a 3-pointer after another Hoyas' offensive rebound and it was beginning to look like the Irish were going to be dominated on the glass again. DaJuan Summers picked up his first foul for the Hoyas on the ensuing possession and (Sr. SG #23) Kyle McAlarney tied the game at 5 with a 3-pointer off a Harangody kick out. Austin Freeman gave the Hoyas the lead again with a jumper and after an exchange of turnovers Gody tied the game at 7 down low. The Irish were starting to do better on the boards and (Jr. PG #2) Tory Jackson got fouled on a drive by Summers, his 2nd foul of the game, and the game went to the first media timeout tied at 7. The game was being played at Georgetown's pace but the Irish effort on defense and on the glass was vastly improved from the performance at MSG against the Red Storm.
Summers took a seat for the Hoyas with his 2 fouls, which is important because foul trouble would become a big part of this game. Jackson hit both free throws following the media timeout to give the Irish a 9-7 lead but Monroe drained a jumper to tie the game at 9 as the game was just going back and forth. A Jackson jumper was answered again by Monroe and Monroe would score again to give the Hoyas a 13-11 lead. The teams would trade empty possessions before Harangody picked up his 2nd foul of the game at the 12 minute mark and had to leave the game. Henry Sims followed a missed jumper by Wright by grabbing the rebound and dunking to give the Hoyas a 4 point lead but McAlarney drained a bomb of a 3 to cut the lead to 1 and Wright then threw the ball away to bring the game to the 2nd media timeout at 15-14 Hoyas. The Hoyas scored coming out of the timeout but (Sr. C #40) Luke Zeller tied the game with a 3. Jackson's jumper made the score 19-17 Irish but Summers would reenter the game and immediately convert a 3-point play to give the Hoyas the 1 point lead. Gody also reentered the game at this point and quickly got the Irish the lead back with a turnaround jumper. Omar Wattad hit a 3 to give the Hoyas their last lead of the night at 23-21 but McAlarney immediately answered with a 3 of his own to give the Irish the lead for good. The score would stay that way for 2:30 before Zeller converted a layup off of 2 offensive rebounds by (Sr. F #33) Zach Hillesland. Jason Clark would score for the Hoyas to get the score to 26-25 before Harangody took over. Gody would score the next 9 points of the game to extend the Irish lead to 35-25. Austin Freeman cut the lead to 9 by hitting 1 of 2 free throws but Gody scored 2 more from the line and then 2 more 45 seconds later after a basket by Wright and the Irish went into the locker room with a 39-28 lead.
The first half lead existed for several reasons but mostly because of strong rebounding and strong defense from the Irish. Harangody was having trouble on defense with Monroe's size and the Irish switched Zeller onto him after Gody picked up 2 early fouls. Zeller's extra length gave Monroe problems and Monroe, as a freshman, was not strong enough to push Zeller's slight frame around in the paint. The Irish won the rebounding battle in the first half 20-16 and hit all 7 of their free throw attempts. Harangody also had a big first half with 19 points and 6 rebounds, including the last 13 points of the first half for Notre Dame. Summers sitting with foul trouble helped but Harangody sat the same amount of time for the Irish with foul trouble and Zeller did a great job slowing down Monroe.
The Hoyas came out of the halftime break fired up and went on a quick run to slice into the Notre Dame lead. Jessie Sapp hit a 3 to cut the lead to 39-31 and McAlarney turned the ball over, leading to a quick layup for Monroe. Hillesland then turned the ball over and Monroe would score again down low, this time off of an offensive rebound by Freeman and all of a sudden it was a 4 point game, only 2 minutes into the second half. Harangody hit a jumper to make it 41-35 but was then called for a very cheap foul on Monroe to give him 3 on the game. Monroe hit 1 of 2 from the line and after a missed Harangody jumper, Jackson stepped in front of a marauding DaJuan Summers, drawing the charge, and earning the 3rd foul against Summers in the game. (Sr. SF #42) Ryan Ayers hit a big 3 to extend the lead to 8 points before the teams exchanged turnovers and Chris Wright got a breakaway dunk to cut the lead to 6 points. 36 seconds later was a key play in the game as Harangody got called for an absolutely abysmal charge call, giving him 4 fouls at the 15:17 mark as the teams went to a media timeout. Gody would leave the game and Ayers would step up big time with another 3 to get the lead to 9. Wright would hit 1 of 2 from the line following a Jackson foul and Sapp would drain a 3 to get the score to 47-42 Irish but Ayers drained a jumper from two steps inside the arc to get the lead back to 7 and curb the Hoya momentum. Summers hit a jumper to cut the lead to 5 but he would pick up his 4th foul of the game 40 seconds later at the 11:45 mark and would go to the bench.
To everyone's surprise, Gody checked back into the game after the media timeout at 11:45, a risky move by Coach Brey. Gody would hit a jumper a minute later to make it a 51-44 lead and was playing much more passively than usual, especially on the defensive end, to make sure that he would not pick up a 5th foul. Freeman would cut the lead to 5 with 9:29 to play but Gody would score again down low, followed by a Hillesland tip-in of a McAlarney miss to get the lead back to 9 and get the Joyce Center crowd on its feet, forcing John Thompson III to call timeout with 8:14 to play and the score at 55-46 Irish. Summers would drive and go to the line for 2 free throws after a terrible blocking call against Zeller that should have been #5 on Summers. He hit both freebies before Freeman picked up a stupid foul away from the basket with 4 on the shot clock that sent the teams to the 8 minute timeout. McAlarney hit a running 3 after the timeout and after a Summers miss, would drain another 3 for the dagger. This shot put the Irish up 61-48 with 6:41 to play in the game. A cheap call against Jackson would put Georgetown in the bonus and Wright went to the line for 1-and-1. He would hit the front end but miss the back end. However, Monroe grabbed the rebound, missed a shot, grabbed another rebound and converted a layup and got the foul call for the three point play, cutting the lead back to 9. Jackson would hit a pull-up jumper after draining 30 seconds from the clock to make it an 11 point game. Summers would go back to the line for 2 free throws and hit both to get the game back to single digits but time was running out on the Hoyas.
The two teams would trade empty possessions before McAlarney stuffed Wright's layup attempt but the Irish would turn the ball over on the ensuing possession. The Hoyas missed three shots on the next possession thanks to strong offensive rebounding but Jackson eventually pulled it down and ran the floor quickly, finding an open Harangody on the baseline for the dunk and a quick timeout at 3:56 remaining by the Hoyas. A Zeller foul, his 4th, took the game to the 3:43 mark and the final media timeout of the game. Monroe hit 1 of 2 free throws and Harangody grabbed the defensive rebound. The Irish came up empty on their next possession and Zeller would foul out of the game on the next possession where Sapp would hit 1 of 2 free throws to cut the lead to 9 points. Another empty possession for the Irish led to a dunk by Summers to cut the lead to 67-60. McAlarney missed a jumper and Monroe would hit one to cut the lead to 67-62 with under a minute to play. The Irish would inbound the ball against the Hoyas' press and get it to Harangody but eventually the ball went to Jackson with 53 seconds left and he got sent to the line for 1-and-1. Jackson would hit both free throws but Wright answered with a layup with 0:41 left on the clock to cut the lead to 69-64. Gody got the ball off the inbounds pass and went to the line for 1-and-1. He would hit both free throws with 0:35 left and the lead was back to 7. A Jackson foul sent Wright to the line for 2 shots but he only made 1 and the score was 71-65 with 30 seconds left. McAlarney got fouled for 1-and-1 and at 94% looked to be a lock to drain 2 but he missed the front end and Wright layed it up and in with 0:15 left to make it a 71-67 game. McAlarney would get fouled again and hit 2 free throws this time to make it 73-67 which would be the final score after a missed Sapp 3-pointer was Georgetown's last effort.
The Irish got the big win they needed after a terrible loss to St. John's on Saturday afternoon. They also kept the home winning streak alive and it is starting to seem that this team just refuses to lose at home. They played the best defense they have all season and held down the #2 offensive efficiency team in the country. Harangody was just a dominant force and would have had an even better game if he did not get into foul trouble. Coach Brey made two huge decisions in the game that made the difference in the outcome. The first was switching Zeller onto Monroe. Monroe was doing well offensively shooting over Harangody and Hillesland but Zeller's length gave Monroe trouble. The second was allowing Harangody to come back in the game with 4 fouls and 13 minutes remaining. Harangody had to play passively to avoid picking up his 5th foul, which probably cost the Irish some points on defense but not as many points as having him in the game created on offense. The Irish came away with their 44th consecutive home victory and will look to extend the winning streak to 45 against Seton Hall on Saturday.
