A year ago, Georgetown began the Big East schedule with two straight losses before getting untracked with a 67-51 win over St. John’s at Madison Square Garden.
The Hoyas rebounded from their 0-2 start to finish 14-4 in the Big East and in a first-place tie atop the league standings.
With his team now 0-2, Johnnies coach Steve Lavin is clearly hoping for history to repeat itself.
For his team.
“We’re now 0-2 like Georgetown was at this point last year and we will turn our attention to preparing for a very good Villanova team,” Lavin said after his team lost to Georgetown, 77-60, at the Verizon Center. “Clearly we need to put two halves together if we expect to be able to win.”
As we warned in this earlier post, St. John’s is in real danger of falling to 0-3 with Villanova coming to the Big Apple next Saturday.
The Wildcats already own wins over Kansas and Iowa and held a double-digit lead on No. 2 Syracuse before eventually losing last week at the Carrier Dome.
Meantime, the Johnnies were supposed to be one of the Big East’s top teams, perhaps even its most talented.
But they’re off to a rough start, with losses at Xavier and at Georgetown.
D’Angelo Harrison shot 1-for-12 against the Hoyas.
Orlando Sanchez went 2-for-7.
Rysheed Jordan, whom some thought was on the verge of a breakout, managed just 2 points and 1 assist in 15 minutes of action.
The Johnnies allowed Georgetown’s D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera to go off for a season-best 31 points.
It’s still early but for a team with expectations of making the NCAA Tournament and potentially doing some damage in March, this isn’t the way they wanted to get things going in league play.
It’s possible the Johnnies could replicate what Georgetown did last season, but in order for that to happen they pretty much need to win Big East Game No. 3 at the Garden.
Just like the Hoyas did.
