It wasn’t always pretty, but in the end No. 12 Georgetown was able to deal No. 4 Louisville (12-1, 0-1 Big East) its first loss of the season, 71-68. Underclassmen led the way for the Hoyas (11-1, 1-0 Big East), as sophomore guard Markel Starks made all four of his three-point attempts — all in the second half — en route to a game- and career-high 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting. Freshman guard Jabril Trawick scored all nine of his points in the first half to pace the Blue and Gray offense early on.
“[Starks] hit some big shots for us tonight when we needed shots to be made,” Head Coach John Thompson III said. “He made some big plays and his defense got better in the second half [too].”
The story of the night, though, was the play of Otto Porter. The freshman forward notched his first career double-double, scoring 14 points and hauling down a career-best 14 rebounds. The Missouri native was particularly strong down the stretch, as his offensive rebound and putback broke the game’s final tie with 1:41 left, after the Cardinals had erased an 11-point deficit to knot the scores at 63. Porter would go on to grab three more rebounds and make four clutch free throws before missing a pair from the charity stripe with just eight seconds left and the game already in hand.
When the game started, though, it didn’t look like Starks or Porter would get the chance to be the heroes. The Cardinals, who had won their last 20 home games, raced out to an early 12-3 lead as the Blue and Gray struggled to cope with the hosts’ full-court pressure and repeatedly allowed Louisville shooters — most notably senior guard Kyle Kuric —open looks from behind the arc.
Key to surviving Louisville’s first-half onslaught were Trawick and, perhaps more surprisingly, freshman forward Mikael Hopkins. Hopkins, who has played sparingly this season, logged all eight of his minutes in the first half and provided a much-needed physical spark for the Hoyas.
“Otto, Jabril [and] Mikael came in and gave us outstanding minutes,” Thompson III said. “They are freshmen and this is their first Big East experience, but they’ve been doing that since the summer. It’s a group that plays hard and competes.”
Despite an offense that struggled to the tune of nine first-half turnovers, the Blue and Gray found themselves down only three at halftime thanks largely to an 18-13 edge on the boards. The second half started inauspiciously, as senior center Henry Sims was called for a travel on the opening possession, but the Hoyas bounced back to score the half’s first four points and take a 36-35 lead. The game went back and forth for a while after that until the Hoyas ripped off a 13-2 run that turned a one-point Louisville lead into a 10-point Georgetown advantage. Minutes later Starks scored his final points of the game on a pretty backdoor cut to stretch the lead to 11, but the Cardinals’ press went to work and forced turnovers on three of the Hoyas’ next four possessions.
“We were bad coming down the stretch,” Thompson III said. “You play Louisville and they turn you over. That is what they are very good at.”
Although turnovers cost the Hoyas their lead, it didn’t end up costing them the game due to Porter’s heroics and a defense that was able to shut down the Cardinals’ scorers in the half-court.
Despite the win — Georgetown’s first against a top-five team since a win over Syracuse in March 2010 —Thompson III won’t be letting his team get too complacent.
“It was a very good, big win against a very good team in a difficult place to play,” he said. “With all that being said, we’re fortunate to get away with a win. They turned up the heat on us. We had some careless turnovers. We have to tighten things up as we go on.”
Thompson III and the Hoyas will have just two days of practice to fix those problems when they host Providence (11-3, 0-1 Big East) on New Year’s Eve at Verizon Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday.