Wright has 21, No. 7 Hoyas rally for win
February 10, 2010
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)—Providence coach Keno Davis shudders at the suggestionthat Georgetown, with its No. 7 ranking, is the worst team the Friars will playover the next two weeks.
“If it turns out it was the easy game, I’ll eat my words,” Davis saidTuesday night after the Hoyas beat Providence 79-70 in the first of fourstraight games the Friars will play against team ranked in the top seven. “Butthere’s no reason that team can’t go deep in the NCAA tournament. I hope theydo.”
Chris Wright scored 21 points, Julian Vaughn scored a career-high 19 andGreg Monroe had 12 points and a career-high 12 assists for Georgetown. Wrightscored 16 points in the second half as the Hoyas (18-5, 8-5 Big East) erased aneight-point deficit.
Jamine Peterson scored 23 points and Bilal Dixon had a career-high 16rebounds for Providence (12-12, 4-8).
The Friars led 47-40 with 15 minutes left before Georgetown scored 14 of thenext 15 points, getting a three-point play from Wright to tie it and then takingthe lead with 12 minutes left.
“Road wins in this league are difficult to come by,” Georgetown coach JohnThompson III said. “This was a game where things were not going well for us ina lot of different ways. We were extremely frustrated for large parts of thatgame. That’s because of Providence, that’s because of what they were doing,that’s because of their offensive execution and their defensive tenacity.”
Providence outrebounded Georgetown 42-31, but the Friars shot just 34percent from the field and 64 percent from the free throw line. Players gottangled up under the basket with 16:43 left in the game, with Monroe and Dixonjawing before the referees sent the teams to their benches to cool off.
“They really hit the boards,” Wright said. “It got very physical downthere. Any way we could we tried to box them out and try to keep them off theboards.”
Georgetown, which according to the RPI has the most difficult strength ofschedule in the nation, was coming off a 103-90 win over then-No. 2 Villanova onSaturday.
But they will get no sympathy from the Friars.
Providence is in the middle of a 6-of-8 stretch of games against rankedteams, with the next three against No. 4 Villanova, No. 5 West Virginia and No.2 Syracuse. The Friars have already beaten No. 19 Connecticut in Providence andlost at Syracuse.
Davis said he had never heard of a team playing four top-seven teams in arow.
“I think what that shows is the Big East, we’re not in a down year fromlast year,” he said. “I thought our team gave as good as an effort as wepossibly could, and for them to come away with a win shows why they are theseventh team in the country.”
Providence led by as many as eight points in the second half beforeGeorgetown came back, tying it on Wright’s steal and fast-break layup with 12minutes left and taking a 49-48 lead when he hit the foul shot to convert thethree-point play.
Peterson missed two free throws—Providence missed 12 foul shots in all—then Wright made a free throw. After Peterson missed a 3-pointer, Wright madetwo more free throws to give Georgetown a 54-48 lead with 9:40 left. SharaudCurry hit a 3-pointer and PC later cut the deficit to 56-54, but never got anycloser.
Providence had a last chance at a comeback in the last 2 minutes whenMarshon Brooks made a layup to make it 69-64, then the full-court pressureforced a baseball pass that just missed the outstretched fingers of a Friardefender. Monroe caught it instead and moved in for a layup and foul, convertingthe three-point play to give Georgetown a 71-64 lead with 70 seconds left.
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