February appeared to arrive two days early at Capital Centre, andas Georgetown senior guard Mark Tillmon said, 'February is our time.'
Sporting a new starting lineup and tremendous defensiveintensity, the sixth-ranked Hoyas began their stretch run last nightby grinding out a 70-48 victory over Seton Hall before 10,504.
Georgetown (16-2 overall, 6-2 in the Big East) moved into a tiefor first place in the conference with Connecticut. Saturday, theHoyas will play St. John's (6-3 in the league) while Connecticutvisits Providence.
The Pirates (10-8, 3-5) did not score until more than 5 1/2minutes had been played and did not make a basket until more than sixminutes had been played. During the first half's final 10:10, theymade one basket and that was on goaltending with four minutes left.
Things did not get much better for Seton Hall in the second half.The remnants of the 1989 NCAA tournament runner-up did not make abasket for the first 2 1/2 minutes, later went five minutes without afield goal and needed nearly 11 minutes to score 10 points.
Seton Hall's shooting statistics looked like this: zero for 12from the field to begin the game, five for 28 (17.9 percent) for thefirst half, 15 for 58 (25.9 percent) for the game. It was thePirates' lowest point total since a 44-43 victory over Princeton intheir fourth game of the 1985-86 season.
'We came out and played as hard as we could,' said Tillmon, whohad a game-best 25 points on 9-of-13 field goal shooting, 4 stealsand 3 assists. 'If we play the way we did today for the rest of theseason, we are going to be a team to be reckoned with.'
Hoyas Coach John Thompson set the tone for last night's game notlong after his team's 95-76 loss to Syracuse on Saturday. That waswhen he decided to start senior forward Anthony Allen for the firsttime in 67 games-more than two seasons' worth-and senior forward SamJefferson for the first time in 13 games. They replaced juniorcenter Dikembe Mutombo and freshman forward Michael Tate.
'Those are kids who are in the last months of their careers,'Thompson said of Allen and Jefferson. 'That's why I made the changein the lineup. Seniors understand that this is the last time around.It had nothing to do with how anybody else was playing.'
Neither Allen nor Jefferson scored, but each blocked a shot inthe opening minutes and Allen (zero for two from the field) grabbedsix rebounds in 19 minutes, Jefferson (zero for five from the field,zero for two from the free throw line) five rebounds in 14 minutes.
'I don't think I played that well,' Jefferson said. 'I'll dobetter. But the important thing was that we won. It's February, andwe've got to get going. As a team, we had to bounce back from thatSyracuse loss.'
Asked if it was nice to start, Allen-who said he did not rememberthat his last start had come in the 14th game of the 1987-88season-responded: 'It was nice to win.'
Senior guard Dwayne Bryant had 15 points on 6-of-9 field goalshooting, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Sophomore forward AlonzoMourning had 12 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocked shots; Mutombo 7points, 11 rebounds and 5 blocks.
Senior forward Frantz Volcy had 16 points and 8 rebounds to leadSeton Hall, but he was the only Pirates player in double figures.
Senior forward Michael Cooper, who entered shooting a BigEast-leading 60.5 percent from the field overall and 63.5 inconference games, made 2 of 9 shots.
Junior forward Anthony Avent, who entered as the Big East'ssecond-leading rebounder with 10.6 per game, got 6.
Freshman guard Terry Dehere, averaging 17.6 points per game,scored 8 on 2-for-10 shooting.
'It was a learning experience,' Volcy said.
Georgetown provided a foreshadowing when Mourning and Allenblocked Seton Hall's first two shots. The Pirates missed their nextseven field goal tries, had one blocked by Jefferson, then missed twomore. By then Seton Hall also committed three turnovers.
Yet prior to free throws by Dehere 5:33 into the game, thePirates had fallen behind by just 7-0 because Georgetown began threefor eight from the field and zero for two on free throws. But beforeSeton Hall's Oliver Taylor made a jumper at the 6:13 mark, the Hoyasmade it 10-2 on a three-point play by Tate.
As they did after most of Seton Hall's made shots or free throws,the Hoyas rushed downcourt. And Tillmon set up Tate for a layup.
'Against Syracuse, we didn't do a good job of pushing the ball upthe court,' Bryant said. 'That's something we have to do to open upour half-court game.'
The Hoyas committed turnovers their next three possessions, andSeton Hall made it 13-10 by making three consecutive shots. But eventhat run included a turnover.
'We did a very good job defensively,' Allen said. 'We were ableto puzzle them, and they had difficulty running their offense.'
Seton Hall's next basket didn't come until four minutes remainedin the half, when Mourning was called for goaltending a shot byAvent. By that time, the Hoyas led, 26-16.
They solidified their lead with a 10-0 run. And they put thegame away midway through the second half with another 10-0 run-makingit 53-27 with 10 minutes to play.
'They did the things they wanted to do, and they were able to getus out of our game,' Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo said.
'We hung with them for eight or nine minutes because we weredoing a good job in our half-court defense. Had we been able to playwith any confidence on the offensive end, we might have been able tostay in the game. But when we didn't, it was a matter of time.'
