Georgetown collapses in the second half, gets saddled with a 64-60 loss to Marquette

By Kareem Copeland,

On Saturday night against Marquette, the Georgetown men’s basketball team wanted to forget about 2020, which was tumultuous on and off the court, and start anew. Then the Hoyas threw the ball away on their first four possessions, including a Donald Carey rocket to the corner that nearly took out a fan cutout in the empty seats of McDonough Arena.

Georgetown survived its early ineptitude to build a 16-point halftime lead, but Marquette erased that deficit and then some in a lopsided second half to claim a 64-60 victory and hand the Hoyas their third straight loss. The Hoyas (3-6, 1-4 Big East) have lost four straight matchups against the Golden Eagles (6-5, 2-3).

“Bad shots and bad decisions. Turnovers,” Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing said. “We did a great job in the first half of playing great defense. In the second half, we got selfish and started turning it over. . . . We’ve just got to do better, especially down the stretch. We started the game with five or six turnovers. We ended the game with five or six turnovers. We’ve just got to make better decisions.”

Marquette dominated the second half, and a Jamal Cain three-pointer with 15 seconds remaining extended the Golden Eagles’ lead to 64-60. The Hoyas had possession trailing 61-60, but Carey lost control of the ball and a scramble resulted in a held ball. Marquette had the possession arrow, and Cain cemented the win from the outside.

He finished with a career-high 25 points, including 20 in the second half. Dawson Garcia added nine points and 13 rebounds.

“Jamal was great, and that’s exactly what you’d want your senior to do,” Marquette Coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “Everybody’s going to point to the big three he hit, and that was huge, but he was terrific throughout. When you’re struggling, when you’re against the ropes like we were, you need your veterans to step up, and Jamal certainly did that.”

“We didn’t dwell on things,” Cain said. “We know basketball is two halves, and we didn’t play to our full potential in the first half; so we knew we had to bring it for another 20 minutes.”

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Jahvon Blair led Georgetown with 20 points despite being benched to start the game. It was the first time he did not start this season. The senior guard, the Hoyas’ top scorer, entered the game with 17:40 remaining in the first half — after those four straight turnovers. Ewing declined to specify why Blair did not start, saying he didn’t want to talk about it. When he got into the game, Blair provided a calming presence and scored six points during a 14-0 run that gave the Hoyas an 18-9 lead.

Freshman Kobe Clark started in Blair’s place. The Hoyas are still without graduate transfer Jalen Harris, who left the team to attend to family matters after starting the season’s first five games.

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Sophomore center Qudus Wahab finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks for Georgetown, and freshman forward Jamari Sibley added a ­career-high seven points.

Marquette entered the game first in Big East play in field goal percentage and three-point percentage, but after a 4-for-8 start, that strong shooting was nowhere to be seen; the Golden Eagles went six minutes without scoring. After taking a 9-4 lead, Marquette closed the first half shooting 4 for 23 from the field. It also was 2 for 11 from behind the arc in the half.

The strong defensive effort was a nice change of pace for the Hoyas, who had ranked ninth in conference play in scoring defense and eighth in three-point defense.

“We did not get off to the start we wanted to, and a lot of that is a result of how well Georgetown was playing,” Wojciechowski said. “But our kids showed a great resolve to stay with it and to find ways to win. Not sure it was anything I said [at halftime]. It was more of them deciding that we needed to step it up, and I give them full and complete credit for answering the call.”

Powered by Cain, the Golden Eagles used a 22-4 run to take a 59-56 lead. The Hoyas shot just 9 for 30 and managed only 24 points in the second half. They finished with 17 turnovers, an area that has frustrated Ewing all season.

“Everyone has to take it upon themselves to make the right decisions,” he said. “ . . . Look at the score. We lost by four points. It was a one-point game, nip and tuck, with about a minute to go. Then we turned the ball over.”

Georgetown visits Butler (2-5, 1-3) at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

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