On Monday night, one of the hottest teams in college basketball, no. 15 Georgetown (18-4, 8-3 Big East), grinded out a 63-55 win over no. 18 Marquette (17-6, 8-3 Big East).  The Hoyas have now won six straight games and eight of their last nine, putting them at second place in the Big East.

As has been the case during this streak, sophomore forward Otto Porter Jr. and junior guard Markel Starks led the way for Georgetown.  Porter Jr. finished with 21 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists.  It is the fifth time Porter Jr. has scored over 20 points this season.  Starks had 16 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists.

Junior forward Nate Lubick also reached double figures with 10 points and a team-high of four assists.  Lubick did most of his damage from the free throw line where he had eight free throws.  Sophomore Mikael Hopkins had a career-high and game-high of 9 rebounds and also added 6 points and 3 blocks.

“God bless him.  [Hopkins] has to do it again on Saturday,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “He did a good job in that regard, but he is supposed to do a good job in that regard.”

The Hoyas held Marquette’s leading scorer Vander Blue to just 7 points and powerful forward Davante Gardner to 2 points.  Georgetown also caused 19 Marquette turnovers including 11 in the first half.

“Mikael [Hopkins], Nate [Lubick], and Moses [Ayegba] did a good job of not letting their big men get the ball down low,” Thompson said.

Marquette grabbed an early 11-6 lead five minutes into the game.  The Golden Eagles scored easy baskets in the post including 6 points from center Chris Otule.  The Hoyas quickly responded, though, with 2 three pointers from Starks that started a 10-2 Georgetown run.  The Blue and Gray claimed a 14-11 advantage that they would not lose for the rest of the game.

“I think our big guys got in a rhythm of what they were trying to do,” Thompson said. “We didn’t necessarily make a tactical change.  Our big guys just did a better job of guarding [Otule].”

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After a light week ending with a tight win over Rutgers, the Hoyas go into a rematch with Marquette with the intention of avenging their one-point loss earlier in the season. The Golden Eagles have won the last two meetings, but in the last six matchups between these two squads, the victory has gone to the home team.

Not only does this game have implications for momentum in the closing stretch of conference play, but it is also crucial for the battle for the Big East title. Marquette currently shares the top spot in the conference with Syracuse. The Hoyas are one game out of the Big East lead and control their own destiny with this game and two matchups with the Orange remaining.

In the beginning of the season, the Hoya scoring was very concentrated. In the first meeting with Marquette, sophomore forward Otto Porter Jr., sophomore forward Greg Whittington, and junior guard Markel Starks scored 44 of the Hoyas’ 48 points. Since then, not only have the rest of the starters stepped up, but also the bench players who saw limited time before Whittington’s exit have stepped up to help ease the burden on Porter Jr. and Starks’ backs.

Eyes will be on Porter Jr. and Marquette junior guard Vander Blue, who has averaged 19.5 points in the past four games. The wild cards in this game will be Starks, who has put up solid points over the last four games, but has been shooting sporadically different percentages game-to-game throughout the season and Marquette senior guard Junior Cadougan who has alternated between solid performances and scoring in the low single-digits. Cadougan’s performances have often been correlated with result of the game.

Marquette, recently, has come up short in games where they have been tested. Despite blowing out Providence, South Florida (twice), and DePaul, the Golden Eagles were unable to pull out a win against Cincinnati, and looked lost in a 19-point loss against a sliding Louisville. The Hoyas, on the other hand have won their last five, with two ranked wins as part of the streak. However, last time the Hoyas came up short against Marquette, they were riding a seven game win streak.

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This past Saturday, superstar guard Dwyane Wade of the NBA’s Miami Heat made an uncharacteristic trip to the DC area. Instead of his usual high-flying exploits in the Verizon Center facing off against the hometown Washington Wizards, Wade visited popular DC bookstore Politics and Prose to sign copies of his new book: A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball.

Wade was greeted by a hoard of fans lining Connecticut Avenue, many of whom seemed to lose sanity as he stepped out of his car.

A two-time NBA champion and former NBA Finals MVP, Wade recently won custody of his two sons Zaire and Zion which, as he explained to Vox, has affected his relationship with the game of basketball.

“Well, I love basketball,” Wade said, “but it’s not the most important thing in my life… my family is the most important thing in my life… When you’re young, you don’t really know that… I loved my kids, but they was at home. Until I lost them, and they wasn’t at home, did I realize how important they were to me. I changed and matured in that sense.”

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Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh that’s Georgetown basketball baby hhheeeeelllll yeah

— jeff (@unclejeffgreen) January 5, 2012

The No. 9 Georgetown Hoyas (13-1, 3-0 Big East) notched another huge victory tonight, coming back from 14 down at halftime to defeat No. 20 Marquette (12-3, 1-1 Big East) with a frenetic effort in the closing minutes. Junior Hollis Thompson sat for most of the second half, but entered and responded with three clutch shots to complete the astonishing Hoya comeback. He finished with 16 points and senior Henry Sims contributed 13 of his own to go alongside a strong defensive effort. Fellow senior Jason Clark steadied the Hoyas throughout the game, keeping them in the game almost singlehandedly at times while putting up 26 points.

The Comeback

After a promising start to the game, things quickly spiraled out of control for Georgetown. The Hoyas trailed by 17 with 13 minutes left in the second half, a seemingly insurmountable margin considering their ineffectiveness at both ends of the court. At that point, Georgetown’s five consisted of Clark along with four freshmen–Otto Porter, Jabril Trawick, Greg Whittington, and Mikael Hopkins.

For many teams, putting that much inexperience on the floor at such a crucial moment might look like a white flag. Georgetown’s freshmen, however, have shown a precocious ability to handle the pressures of Big East basketball, and they rewarded head coach John Thompson III’s faith in them yet again.

The first signs of life came when Clark hit a three-pointer, followed seconds later by Trawick swiping a Marquette pass and feeding Hopkins for a fast break layup. From there, it was a slow and steady march back to even, made possible by a revitalized Hoya defense. After spending much of the game in a porous 2-3 zone, Georgetown employed a suffocating man-to-man defense. The key was the length (not to mention the tenacious effort) of the freshmen, in particular Whittington, who locked down Marquette’s Darius Johnson-Odom (only five of his 18 points came in the second half) and secured a steal with just over two minutes remaining that led to the Hoyas’ first lead of the second half.

“We were just rolling,” Hollis Thompson said of watching Clark work with the four freshmen. “They couldn’t score. I don’t know how long it was but it felt like they couldn’t get a basket for a long time.”

Of course, there could be no comeback unless the Hoyas started hitting shots. They did so with ease in the second half, shooting 76.2 percent from the field and missing just two field goals the rest of the way after going down by 17. (Georgetown’s shooting from the free throw line was a different story–the Hoyas were an abysmal 13-for-23 from the stripe.) While the freshmen were the key on defense, it was the upperclassmen who took control on the offensive end.

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Fr. Scott Pilarz (COL ’81), the man famously known for bringing Jack the Bulldog to Georgetown, will become Marquette University’s 23rd president.

After entering the Society of Jesus, Pilarz returned to his alma mater in 1996 to teach as an English professor. Before he left to become the president of the University of Scranton, Pilarz also served as interim University Chaplain.

While at Georgetown, Pilarz got involved in the “Bring Back Jack” movement, which led to the purchase of Jack the Bulldog in 1999. (Later that year, the Class of 1999 awarded Pilarz the Edward B. Bunn, S.J., Award for Faculty Excellence.)

As Jack’s caretaker, he ultimately brought the dog with him to Scranton when he left in 2003. Jack, now 11, is set to move to Marquette with Pilarz next summer.

The University of Scranton thrived under Pilarz’s leadership, launching a $125 million capital campaign that led to the construction of new residence halls, a student center, and a science building. And despite the distance, Pilarz still maintained a close relationship with Georgetown; he received the Alumni Association’s highest honor, the John Carroll Award, in 2009.

Pilarz will replace Fr. Robert A. Wild, who will step down at the end of the 2010-2011 academic year.

Photo: Marquette.edu

Read Tim Shine’s postgame coverage in Voice sports.

Photos by Jackson Perry

The forces of good prevailed over the forces of evil yesterday afternoon, so Georgetown’s quest for a Big East title continues tonight against fifth-seeded Marquette, who upset Villanova yesterday. The Hoyas are also apparently on a quest for revenge, because the Golden Eagles are the third straight tourney opponent that beat Georgetown in the regular season.

Georgetown played Marquette all the way back on January 6, losing a 62-59 heartbreaker in Milwaukee when Chris Wright missed a three to tie with one second to go. Back then the Golden Eagles were a young squad struggling to establish itself in the Big East. Now they’re one of the conference’s hottest teams, winning 11 of their last 13 games.

Win or lose tonight, the Hoyas can expect to be in a close game. The Golden Eagles played only six Big East games this season decided by more than five points. They closed out the regular season with four of their final five games going to overtime. Both of their tournament games so far have been decided in the final seconds. The Hoyas are well aware that they’re in for a fight.

“Marquette, I don’t how many games, but they lost a lot of games by probably five points or less,” Wright said. “So they’re a very good team, and they have very good players.”

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This year, Vox is taking a page from Deadspin and New York’s books and giving you a guide for rooting against each of the Hoyas’ Big East opponents. In preparation for tonight’s game at Marquette, here are three reasons to hate the Golden Eagles:

They’re due

Before the season began, the Big East coaches picked Marquette to finish 12th in the conference. If you only look at wins and losses, that ranking might seem justified; the Golden Eagles are losers of five of their last eight games and have opened conference play 0-2.

However, those numbers don’t show that all five losses were close games against major conference opponents, or that Marquette lost those two Big East games by a combined three points to top-10 West Virginia and Villanova. The Golden Eagles are a team due for a win, and a No. 12 Georgetown squad, fresh off two relatively easy wins and with a Saturday match-up against No. 13 Connecticut looming, comes into Milwaukee with a big target on its back.

It is hard to think the Hoyas won’t be prepared for the Golden Eagles after seeing how tough they played WVU and ‘Nova, but if they approach Marquette like the 12th-best team in the Big East, they will lose.

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