Two squads on the heels of losses face off with each other on Saturday afternoon.
The Georgetown-Villanova rivalry has lost a bit of its luster over the years. But Saturday’s matchup certainly is important for both teams. ‘Nova needs to bounce back off a rare home loss against Marquette earlier in the week. The importance is heightened when you consider Providence leads the Big East right now with their 5-1 record in conference play. Villanova’s 6-2 is strong, but it is not the mightiest. Georgetown, meanwhile, just wants a win, man. They’ve reeled off five straight losses dating back to December 18. Can they pick up a win? I mean anything’s possible… but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen either.
How to watch Georgetown vs. Villanova
Time: Noon ET
TV: Fox
Watch Online: Fox Sports App
Betting Odds
(via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Spread: Villanova -14.5 | Georgetown +14.5Thi
Total: 139.5
Moneyline: N/A
This should not shock you but Villanova holds a pretty stern advantage over Georgetown this season. It’s a pretty relentless one in some cases, but I do wonder about this game because of where it’s being located.
It’s not to say that I think Georgetown will win. WIth regards to how gaudy that point spread above is though? I’m intrigued to see how it plays out. Georgetown’s been a pretty decent home team this year. Their avg. scoring margin is still in the positives, chilling at +3.5. They’re scoring 77.2 points per game at home, which is better than Villanova’s output on the road by about 10 points, by the way. They’re shooting nearly 40 percent on 3-pointers at the MCI Center — don’t care that it’s not called that, just keep reading along here. Their eFG% is at 50.7 percent.
Defensively is mostly where Georgetown suffers of course and that might prove costly. While Villanova isn’t blazing the nets this year — 133rd in PPG and 73rd in 3PT FG% — they’re certainly much more efficient than Georgetown is. And that could prove troublesome if Villanova keeps things as slow as they often have this year (19.9 secs. is their avg. poss length to just 16.4 for Georgetown).
It should also be noted that Georgetown ranks just 278th in 3PT FG defense. So Villanova, who shot just 25 percent from 3 against Marquette, could be due for a bounce-back showing.
I think Villanova wins this one… but I’m not sure that they do it by that many points. They may well, but the Hoyas being kinda decent at home despite their record showing otherwise gives me pause about 7+ possessions being the difference. This feels more like 73-65 in favor of Villanova versus anything bigger than that.