PC Friars Look to Sweep Georgetown (Again)

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist

Providence College men’s basketball, fresh off one of their most complete outings of the season against Villanova, is off to Washington DC, to tangle with former Coach Cooley and the Hoyas on Wednesday evening at 7 PM.  The Friars will be looking to capitalize on their convincing 75-62 win over Villanova and sweep the season series against Georgetown.

PC won the first outing of the year against the Hoyas 78-68 on the Friars home court on January 25th.  In that first outing, PC was led by Jayden Pierre and Bensley Joseph who each scored 14 points.  Georgetown had monster scoring efforts from Micah Peavy (27 points) and freshman sensation 6’10” Thomas Sorber (25 points).  The Friars were able to overcome those two robust Hoya scoring efforts with balanced scoring ( 5 PC players scored in double digits), with only 8 turnovers, a nice home court night at the charity stripe where they converted 15 of 19 free throws, and an energetic home crowd of 12,400.

Georgetown, much like the Friars, is up and down from one game to the next.  You may recall that they started the Big East season with a 3-0 record, gaining surprise victories over Creighton, Seton Hall, and Xavier.  Since that encouraging Big East start, the Hoyas have gone 3-8 in the league.  They are coming off a 97-86 away loss to Butler this past Saturday.  Like many Big East teams, the Hoyas do fairly well at home and struggle on the road.  In Big East action, Georgetown is 4-3 at home and 2-5 away.

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Here are the overall metrics for the Hoyas and Friars.

Three notable items from these numbers stand out:

1) the Hoyas are a ball-hawking defense and achieve over 8 steals/game

2) the Hoyas don’t do well shooting the threes with a much lower percentage making threes than PC

3) looking at the overall scoring margin in Big East games, PC, as all PC fans know too well, have suffered many close losses.

In the upcoming matchup against the Friars, Georgetown has four players who score in double figures every game:  Micah Peavy-15.4pts/game; Thomas Sorber-14.5 pts/game; Malik Mack-12.8 pts/game; and Jordan Epps—12.0 pts/game.  Freshman forward 6’10” Sorber is also a rebounding stud.  Mack is their point guard leading the team in assists and steals.

Sorber, however, is a game-time decision in the game against PC this Wednesday night.  He was injured in the recent loss at Butler and didn’t play in the second half.  It is not known, at the time of the writing of this column, whether he will suit up for the PC game.  It will give the Friars an excellent opportunity to win this game if he doesn’t play.

Three other keys to a Friars’ road win against Georgetown:

– Continue the hot three-point shooting from the Villanova game where they scored their season-best with 13 three-point shots made;
– Limit turnovers to under ten;
– Avoid the offensive slump that often occurs in the first five minutes of the second half;
– Bottle up the middle on defense and force the Hoyas to shoot threes.

Odds and Ends

– Georgetown has only attracted 5,583 fans/game this year; in the Big East, only DePaul averages fewer fans.  The Cooley Magic has yet to convince Hoya fans that the Hoyas are on the right track.

– Billy Donovan weekend brought back how Rick Pitino’s 1986-87 Friars relished and thrived on three-point shooting.  The Friars led the nation that season with three-point buckets made with an average of 8.2/game.  How the game has changed since then!  The Friars are averaging 8.8/game this year, and they are not even in the top 50 teams.  This season there are 22 Division teams who average 10+ made threes/game.

– UConn’s 69-68 loss to Seton Hall this weekend was shocking and unexpected.  It is doubtful that any Big East fans outside of the state of Connecticut shed a tear for Coach Hurley.

– Georgetown’s freshman Thomas Sorber has been selected Big East Freshman of the Week eight times this season.  He has a great future ahead of him, and either him or UConn’s Liam McNeely will likely be the Big East Freshman of the Year.  He is also likely to be a high draft pick in the NBA draft this spring, and the Hoyas will have to shell out a bundle of NIL $ to keep him at Georgetown.

– The 75-62 PC win over Villanova was a satisfying win on many levels.  One of the best take-aways is the continued development of freshman Friar Ryan Mela.  In his 33 minutes of playing time against the Wildcats, he contributed 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. 

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