Court Report: Georgetown
The top-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes, champions of the South Region, will square off against the Georgetown Hoyas, the No. 2-seed and East Regional champions in the national semifinals, Saturday night. Tip-off at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta is scheduled for 6:07pm EDT.
The game will be televised on CBS with Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, and on your transistor, “Big Daddy” Paul Keels and Ron Stokes call the action broadcasting on the OSU Radio Network to 60 different stations throughout Buckeyeland.
Georgetown enters the game with a record of 30-6, and winners of the Big East regular season (13-3) and tournament championships.
The only nonconference losses for the Hoyas came to Old Dominion on November 19 (75-62), Oregon on November 29 (57-50), and Duke on December 2 (61-52).
Ohio State and Georgetown share two common opponents, Michigan and Cincinnati, as the Hoyas defeated the Wolverines 67-51 in Ann Arbor, and were victorious against the Bearcats twice during conference play (82-67 on January 27 at home, and 75-65 on February 21 at UC).
The Hoyas are led by 6-foot-9 junior forward Jeff Green, who was named the Big East Conference player of the year, and the most outstanding player in the East Regional.
Green leads the team in scoring at 14.4 points per game, and second with an average of 6.2 rebounds per contest.
Roy Hibbert, a 7-foot-2 junior center is second on the Georgetown roster in scoring at 12.7 points per game, and is the team’s best glass cleaner at 6.9 rpg.
Third on the Hoyas in scoring is 6-foot-1 junior guard Jonathan Wallace, who averages 11.2 points per game, and is by far the team’s best three-point shooter at 48.9 percent from beyond the arc.
Rounding out the starting five for Georgetown is freshman DaJuan Summers, a 6-foot-8 forward (9.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg), and 6-foot-3 sophomore guard Jessie Sapp (9.1 ppg, 3.4 apg).
Key contributor off the bench is 6-foot-8 junior forward Patrick Ewing Jr. (4.2 ppg, 2.1 rpg).
Like Ohio State, Georgetown will go nine deep. Georgetown is not a great three-point shooting team at 37.1 percent, though that is slightly better than what Ohio State has done from beyond the arc (36.9 percent). But, Ohio State has also attempted 143 more three-pointers over the course of the season.
Ohio State averages 55.6 field goal attempts per game, while Georgetown averages 49.3, which is largely attributed to Hoyas’ coach John Thompson III and the Princeton offense he uses, which emphasizes constant motion, passing, back-door cuts, and disciplined teamwork.
With that, I would surmise that Ohio State head coach Thad Matta will employ a 2-3 zone defense against Georgetown, which will hopefully keep 7-foot center Greg Oden out of foul trouble.
I am sure, though, that depending on personnel and what the game dictates, he will switch back and forth from zone to man.
For Buckeye fans, we all remember last year in the NCAA second round game at UD Arena when Hibbert dominated 6-foot-9 Terence Dials in the low post to score 20 points, and Ohio State didn’t have anyone who could man up on Green, who added another 19 in a 70-52 win for Georgetown.
Several “expert” prognostigators are picking Georgetown to win, but if they do, they are going to have to attempt and make a lot of threes.
With a win, Ohio State will take on the winner of Florida/UCLA, Monday night.




















