The Golden Eagles head out on the road with an eye on a second straight Big East win…. or at least a second straight solid performance.
#21 Marquette Golden Eagles (21-7, 12-5 Big East) at Georgetown Hoyas (16-12, 7-10 Big East)
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2025
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
Marquette Stats Leaders
Points: Kam Jones, 18.6 ppg
Rebounds: David Joplin, 5.2 rpg
Assists: Kam Jones, 6.0 apg
Georgetown Stats Leaders
Points: Micah Peavy, 16.5 ppg
Rebounds: Micah Peavy, 5.6 rpg
Assists: Malik Mack, 4.6 apg
Georgetown Injury Note: GU super-freshman Thomas Sorber is out for the rest of the season with a foot injury that required surgery. He was the leading rebounder for the Hoyas at 8.5 per game, as well as sitting at #2 in scoring with 14.5 per game and third in assists with 2.4. In the first game against Marquette this season, the 6’10”, 255 pound Sorber went for 11 points, 13 rebounds, and five blocks.
Last Time Out: I think it is very important to point out here that when Marquette and Georgetown collided on January 7th in Milwaukee, Marquette and Georgetown were both undefeated in Big East play and the Hoyas had just picked up a sole 25th place vote in the Associated Press poll. That context is important relative to the next thing, which is Georgetown put up a 23-3 run in the first half on Marquette and led 31-18 with six minutes left before intermission.
Marquette won the game, which means that they outscored the Hoyas 56-35 the rest of the way. MU was down nine at the half as Georgetown started sputtering on the offensive end almost immediately and it just kept going like that for them. The last bucket of the first half was the start of a 13-2 Marquette run that brought the Golden Eagles back within one, and yes, they didn’t actually take the lead for good until the final two minutes, but Georgetown spent most of the second half with that 23-3 run having gone completely to waste.
Since Last We Met: Remember the context of “Georgetown was undefeated in Big East play and earning a sole top 25 vote” from a second ago? Yeah, so things have derailed for the Hoyas since the first MU/GU game. Whatever positivity they could have assembled from getting to 12-2 on the year and 3-0 in the Big East with wins over Creighton and Xavier almost immediately evaporated in the wake of losing to Marquette. It’s not that losing by eight at home to UConn was a dealbreaker or that falling by five at St. John’s was a problem. That’s just catching three of the best teams in the league in a row, bad scheduling luck more than anything else.
No, the problem with Georgetown is that they compounded those three losses by dropping to 3-4 in Big East play with a 73-68 home loss to DePaul….. by giving up a 15-2 run out of the gate….. and even a 12-2 run by the Hoyas in the second half only pulled them within six.
Now, in Georgetown’s defense, they’re 3-1 at home since that DePaul loss, and coming up empty — even by 25 points — to St. John’s isn’t that big of a deal for where Ed Cooley and the Hoyas are trying to go this season. Are those three against Butler, Seton Hall, and Providence, the three non-DePaul teams behind them in the standings right now? Mind your business!
We also have to note the aforementioned Thomas Sorber injury, which happened early in their 97-86 road loss against Butler on February 15th. Yes, they beat PC’s brains in, 93-72, without Sorber in their next contest, but they came up empty in their next two, road trips to Creighton and UConn. They were actually giving the Bluejays problems for 30 minutes before a 13-2 run ended their chances, and an early 12-2 run against the Huskies helped them keep it interesting until the final 10 minutes up in Hartford.
Tempo Free Fun: I think we’re looking at both Marquette and Georgetown being two radically different teams than the two squads that faced off in early January. From a Marquette perspective, not a single guy off the bench played more than the nine minutes tallied by Royce Parham. Tre Norman added seven points to Parham’s two for the sum total of scoring from the reserves, and they all combined for five rebounds and two steals. That was back in the “The young guys have to grow up and help us” era of Shaka Smart’s comments, and now we’ve moved along to the “our second unit has been out-practicing our starters” era.
The ability of Marquette to get quality minutes from those next five guys now is particularly important as they head to Washington, D.C., with an eye on continuing to bounce back from that awful loss to Villanova a week ago. On Wednesday night, Georgetown played just eight guys, with one of them being an eight minute experience for Drew McKenna. The game before, it was seven guys, and one was McKenna playing five minutes. In the 21 point crushing of Providence, it was seven guys again, and the margin helped McKenna play 22 minutes there.
Georgetown doesn’t have the horses to deal with Marquette rolling a guy with rested legs out onto the floor at every single stoppage of play. This is particularly true with the Hoyas on the offensive end of the floor, as they’re already a sub-par team in terms of keeping track of the ball. They turn it over nearly 18% of the time, which is #220 in the country according to KenPom.com. This is where I note that Marquette short-circuited Malik Mack’s impact in the first meeting by way of turnovers. Did he finish with a team high 18 points thanks to 3-for-7 long range shooting propelling him to a 50% effective field goal percentage on the day, and did he add five assists, a block, and two steals? Sure. All true. He also committed six turnovers to end up with a below average offensive rating for the game. The 6’2” Maryland native is coughing it up on over 21% of GU’s possessions in their biggest games, and he’s connecting on less than 29% of his three-point attempts against Big East foes. Marquette sending wave after wave of defenders at him will limit his effectiveness, especially without Sorber out there to help.
You saw the stats at the top of the page, you know that Micah Peavy is doing a heck of a lot for the Hoyas right now. He also hasn’t taken a breather in four straight games. Four straight 40 minute outings, five in the last six, seven in the last nine. At some point, that kind of usage catches up with you. Say, for example, in the final 10 minutes of games where you’re competitive with NCAA tournament caliber teams but fall away late, like has happened to the Hoyas in the last two outings.
Before we wrap up, let’s just get straight to the nuts and bolts of what it means if Thomas Sorber isn’t on the floor for Georgetown. As a whole this season during Big East play, Georgetown’s offense has been better according to Hoop Explorer, getting 104.1 points per 100 possessions adjusted for opponents with him, and 117.8 without him. However, none of that really matters because of the impact that Sorber had on Georgetown’s defense.
With him: 92.5 points per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponents
Without him: 113.9 points per 100 possessions.
You can give up a 13 point differential on one end when you’re getting a 20 point differential on the other. That’s a +7 net positive for Georgetown that they’re just not getting right now.
In the three full games without Sorber (we’ll give them a break on the game where he got hurt and threw their game plan out)
Providence: scored 1.00 points per possession
Creighton: scored 1.11 points per possession
Connecticut: scored 1.41 points per possession
None of this means that things are just going to come to Marquette easily on Saturday night. They have to approach things with a serious mindset and play Marquette Basketball The Way It Is Meant To Be Played. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things about Georgetown that can be exploited to come home with a win.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 24-14
Current Streak: The win earlier this season gave Marquette seven straight victories against Georgetown. The Golden Eagles have won 10 of the last 11 and 13 of the last 15.
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