2009-2010 Georgetown Hoyas Basketball: Georgetown vs Temple

Georgetown and Temple played a basketball game at 4 o'clock local time on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of November.

It showed.

In a game that had the words "early season rust" written all over it, the Hoyas and Owls - playing at an odd time of day in order to accommodate ESPN's 24-hour college hoops marathon - reminded the crowd at the Verizon Center why early-season basketball can be so thoroughly painful to watch. They also irritated thousands of American males who carefully planned to watch a live stream of the game at work, only to see a brutal exhibition of hoops that felt like a waste of two good billable hours.

This isn't a knock on Fran Dunphy's Owls or John Thompson III and his assemblage of Hoyas. Mid-November basketball isn't supposed to be particularly artful, and when the body clocks of student athletes have to adjust to an unusual start time to accommodate television, it only makes sense that the level of play would dip even further. Yet, any attempt to summarize this game without pointing to the abysmal quality of competition would represent an act of willful denial. The bottom line about this basketball battle is that it assaulted a pair of rims in Washington, D.C., while also offending a basketball purist's sense of logic.

One of the great truths of basketball is that shooters should continue to shoot their way out of slumps. However, the problem with the display produced by Temple and Georgetown on Tuesday was that the Owls and Hoyas lack elite pure shooters. (If you wanted to see a terrific pure shooter on Tuesday, you needed to watch the Arkansas-Louisville game and check out Rotnei Clarke, the Razorbacks' sensational sniper. THAT is a pure shooter.) Temple no longer has rainmaker Dionte Christmas, an electric shooter with parking-lot range. This year's Temple club has to manufacture baskets with more structured offense. The theme is similar at Georgetown, a program that - over the years - has rarely owned great shooters and has instead relied on its power game near the basket. Yes, shooters should continue to shoot even when the shots aren't dropping, but these two teams have athletic slashers more than true long-distance bombers.

What America saw, then, from its work cubicles and laptop computers was a game in which players never adjusted to the fact that long threes weren't particularly good looks. Temple and Georgetown went a combined 2-of-20 from long range in the first half, but that didn't dissuade either roster from shooting more threes in the second half, as the two squads went 4-of-21 behind the arc. All told, Temple and Georgetown finished 6-of-41 from 3-point land.

Basketball analysts use certain words in certain situations; whenever bad three-point shots are taken, the words "chuck", "heave", "hoist", and "launch" are often employed. Those four words applied to almost every 3-pointer in this contest, especially in the final minutes of regulation.

As a specific case in point, Thompson called a timeout during a Georgetown possession with 54 seconds left in the game and the Hoyas trailing, 45-44. Despite specific instructions from their coach, the Hoyas proceeded to aimlessly pass the ball around the perimeter, before Georgetown guard Chris Wright hoisted a fallaway three at the very end of the shot clock. That kind of possession (minus the timeout) was replicated far too often, but then again, that's why this is mid-November. Thompson and Dunphy will both get their teams to value each possession as this season marches on.

Oh, what about the final outcome, you might be asking? This was a one-point game, after all.

The difference maker for the victorious Hoyas was, plainly put, a man named Monroe.

Georgetown, for all its deficiencies, made this ugly game look beautiful in the win-loss column because Greg Monroe stepped up in the final minutes. After a missed front end of a one-and-one by Temple (the Owls missed two front ends down the stretch, and finished 6-of-16 from the foul line if you account for free throws not attempted because of missed front ends), the Hoyas got the ball back with 23 seconds left, still down by a point. Following a timeout, Monroe received the ball near the right elbow. When Temple's defensive help was drawn away from the basket, Monroe made a hard drive to the rim and converted a layup with 6.5 seconds left. On the Owls' ensuing possession, Monroe teamed with two other Hoya defenders to draw a jump ball on Temple's Luis Guzman. The possession arrow pointed to Georgetown, and the game was over.

Georgetown went 15-of-42 from the field, committed six more turnovers than Temple (16-10), and got crushed on the offensive glass (the Owls had 11 offensive boards, compared to 4 for the home team).

Yet, the Hoyas won. Sounds like a fine Tuesday afternoon in mid-November, shooting percentages be damned.

Georgetown Hoyas vs Temple Owls Basketball Recap