Georgetown @ Creighton preview
Madison Square Garden
Last Meeting ( Feb 9, 2021 ) Creighton 63, Georgetown 48
Georgetown owned a 3-8 record in January, and any hope of reaching the NCAA Tournament seemed bleak.
Fast forward in this unique COVID-19 season and the Hoyas are now just one victory away from securing an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The eighth-seeded Hoyas defeated fifth-seeded Seton Hall 66-58 in the semifinals of the Big East tournament on Friday, and they will face second-seeded Creighton in the championship game on Saturday in New York.
Georgetown (12-12) defeated ninth-seeded Marquette and top-seeded Villanova before taking down the Pirates.
The Hoyas have become the lowest seeded team to reach the final since 2011. Georgetown last competed in the title game in 2010, and its most recent championship came in 2007.
Georgetown's Jamorko Pickett scored 19 points, Dante Harris added 15 and Qudus Wahab had 10 points and eight rebounds in the win over Seton Hall.
"We've shown we have a lot of heart," Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing told FS1 in the postgame television interview. "We've shown we have a lot of tenacity."
Entering the tournament, the Hoyas had to be considered a longshot to win four games in four days.
Not according to their head coach.
"We've taken three steps," Ewing said. "The final one is to be able to get it done (Saturday)."
Following a 74-69 loss Jan. 9 at Syracuse, the Hoyas fell to 3-8. At that point, they had a three-week pause due to COVID-19 issues. Upon returning, they slowly started to improve. If they can beat the Bluejays, they would be headed to the NCAA Tournament.
"I think having nine new faces on our team, it takes time to jell," Ewing said. "We worked hard. It took time to get it going. ... This is not a fluke."
Creighton advanced to the championship game following a grueling 59-56 win over third-seeded UConn.
The 17th-ranked Bluejays shot just 37.1 percent (23 of 62) but made enough key shots down the stretch to advance to their second Big East tournament title game in four years.
Creighton (20-7) is searching for its first-ever Big East tournament title.
Damien Jefferson paced the Bluejays on Friday with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Marcus Zegarowski added 13 points, and Christian Bishop had 11 points and seven rebounds.
Leading Creighton by three, the Huskies had five shots in the final 20 seconds, but the Bluejays were able to withstand the final flurry and will have a chance at an elusive championship.
"It seemed like a couple of those balls were up in the air forever," Creighton head coach Greg McDermott told FS1 in the postgame television interview.
Creighton is usually known as a high-powered offensive team. However, the win over UConn and a number of victories throughout the season have shown how defensive-minded it has become as well.
The Bluejays can now win in multiple ways.
"We've won some rock fights this year, more than we have in the past," McDermott said. "We've been able to win games when we haven't shot it well."
Jefferson and Zegarowski combined to shoot 10 of 27 against the Huskies, but each player knocked down a huge shot in the waning minutes. That's ultimately what matters.
"It's going to be fun (Saturday)," McDermott said. "We'll fire it up and see what happens."
--Field Level Media