Georgetown Notebook

On a special night for the seniors, The Georgetown Hoyas beat No.13 Creighton Bluejays which was shocking to a lot of people. The Hoyas beat the Bluejays 75-63 and four of the Hoyas players scored in double figures. Mikael Hopkins, D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Markel Starks, and Jabril Trawick all scored in double figures. Starks, who was really emotional when talking to the media, finished the game with 17 points and 11 assists. It was senior night and Starks played well and so did his team. Hoyas head coach John Thompson III had his thoughts on senior night."To tell you the truth, I don't want to think about it. This is a group, (Markel) is a player, that we're going to miss. Said Thompson III.I said on television after the game, this is the last home game, but we plan on him playing a few more games in a Georgetown uniform, before everything is said and done."

Doug Mcdermott, who scored 6 points in the first half, but finished the game with 22, started the game really slow and talked about how him getting off to a slow start had an effect on the team starting slow. This was the second game in a row were the Bluejays got of to a slow start."That's a tough question to answer. We feel like we've had pretty good warm ups, a lot of energy, and for some reason, it isn't carrying over to the start of the game.Said Mcdermott. We have to change that. Great teams have to play well for 40 minutes to win. You saw glimpses of it in the second half."

The Hoyas did a good job defensively on Mcdermott because he shot 9-23 from the the field and 4-11 from behind the arc, which was shocking to me because he is averaging 25.9 points per game. He was still close to what he was averaging, but he wasn't as effiecent as he would've liked to be. One thing Creighton was trying to do was stop the Hoyas from getting off to fast starts.

.That is one thing that the Hoyas have been succesfully doing the past few games. In the first half, that was one of the best brands of basketball I've ever seen by the Hoyas. The defense they played on Mcdermott was excellent and was doubling him up every time he got the ball in the post. I asked Thompson III about what they was trying to do to contain Mcdermott and he gave me a funny and honest answer.

"We prayed a lot last night. You can't stop Doug McDermott. I think he' an unbelievable basketball player that puts so much pressure on your defense. He can score in every kind of way and he's always moving. You can't relax. To be honest, between Aaron Bowen and Mikael Hopkins primarily and Jabril a few times, I thought we did an outstanding job on him and he ends up with 22 points. The few times you make a mistake, the few times you fall asleep, it's like bam, bam, bam, he's making a few buckets in a row. It has to be a group effort and you have to try to match his energy and I thought particularly Aaron did a good job of that today."

Starks also acknowledge the fans and he talked about his journey from switching schools and going to a boarding school for his junior and senior year. He attended Georgetown Prep aslo and stayed on campus.

"Waking up every morning at 5:30 to get to Mater Dei, I missed three days of school, two days because of shadow visits, one day because I was just sick.Said the senior point guard who look like he was about to cry. That constant day in day out grind. It wasn't just me... My dad, my mom, making that sacrifice for two straight years and then I got out to Prep. I boarded. I was 15 years old and living by myself, fighting those mental battles. I'll be the first one to tell you that school work hasn't always been my best suit and I've had to work and I've translated what I did off the court onto what I did on the court and I worked, I'm a worker. You've heard coach say it a number of times and you've watched me grow up and I'm a worker. I bring my lunch pail every day and like I said, just to be at this point and finally get here. I went through some tough times here just from a mental standpoint and that's just a part of maturity. That's just part of becoming a man. Everything isn't always going to go your way. A lot of guys go through situations where they come in and play right away, and they don't always work. I went through some ups and downs and that's only made me stronger. That's only made me persevere and adversity is good."

Georgetown can't get to emotional because they're playing for birth in the NCAA tournament. This win against Creighton did put them a position to get a spot in the tournament, but if they want to get a higher a seed, a win against VIllinova will help a lot and plus what they do in the Big East tournament. If the Hoyas can make it far in the NCAA tournament, then they can say they had a good season even through the amount of changes they had to make.