Game 18 - Georgetown (12-5) vs. DePaul (9-9)
Nuts & Bolts
Date: January 17, 2025
Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
Venue: Capital One Arena - Washington, D.C.
How to Watch: CBS Sports Network
Matchup History: Georgetown leads all-time series 19-8
Last Meeting: Georgetown def. DePaul 77-76 on 2/24/24
Prediction: Georgetown 72, DePaul 65
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Head Coach: Ed Cooley (2nd season, 21-28 record at Georgetown)
Record: 12-5 (3-3, 6th in Big East)
Last Time Out: Lost @ St. John’s 63-58 on 1/14/25
Player to Watch: Micah Peavy
A week and a half ago, Georgetown was in second in the Big East at 3-0 in conference play.
Now, after consecutive losses to some of the league’s best teams, Marquette, UConn, and St. John’s, the Hoyas are 3-3 and flushed to sixth in the Big East.
Snap back to reality.
Friday night’s game against DePaul feels huge now. Georgetown cannot afford to lose to the team that was the only conference opponent they beat last year.
Of the six conference games Georgetown has played, they’ve only been expected to win one in my opinion (@ Seton Hall) and they won that game by one, 61-60.
The Hoyas are surely favored to beat DePaul on Friday night. How will they fare when they’re supposed to win?
Head Coach Ed Cooley’s team has had encouraging, but simultaneously disappointing performances of the past few games, particularly against Marquette and St. John’s, where the Hoyas led by at least 15 points in both games before collapsing to a loss.
“We got to do a better job protecting the ball and executing when it counts,” Cooley said after the loss at MSG on Tuesday night.
It’s tough to lose a game when you allow only 63 points like Georgetown did against the Red Storm. The Hoyas shot just 41% from the field and a poor 21% from three (3-14), while turning it over exactly 19 times for the second time in three games.
For Georgetown to turn things around on Friday night, they’ll need to continue the defensive intensity while dramatically improving on the offensive end. Jayden Epps and Malik Mack must take better care of the basketball in order to maximize the Hoyas’ possessions and convert those turnovers into shots.
If they do that, there’s no reason Georgetown shouldn’t walk out of Capital One Arena on Friday night with a 4-3 record in the conference.
Head Coach: Chris Holtmann (1st season, 9-9 record at DePaul)
Record: 9-9 (0-7, 11th in Big East)
Last Time Out: Lost vs. #7 Marquette 85-85 in OT on 1/14/25
Player to Watch: Jacob Meyer
Last year, the DePaul Blue Demons went 3-29 overall and 0-20 in the Big East.
The program made a head coaching change mid-season from Tony Stubblefield to Matt Brady, who went winless as the interim head coach.
The extreme lack of success last year, paired with the lack of a winning season since 2018-19, prompted a search for a new head coach for the program.
Enter Chris Holtmann.
The 53-year old first burst on the scene as the head coach at Butler, where he led the Bulldogs to three straight 20+ win seasons and three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
From there, he was poached to be the next head coach at Ohio State, where he led the Buckeyes to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances, but failed to take the Buckeyes past the Round of 32.
After two straight years of then missing the tournament altogether, Holtmann and OSU parted ways, paving the way for him to take the job at DePaul.
To start the year, Holtmann had the Blue Demons flying; DePaul jumped out to a 7-0 start, more than doubling the win total from all of last season.
Since then, however, the Blue Demons are 2-9, including 0-7 in the Big East and enter Friday night’s game against Georgetown fresh off a heartbreaking 85-83 loss in overtime to #7 Marquette on Tuesday.
It’s DePaul’s third overtime conference loss of the season, falling to Providence and Seton Hall in OT as well.
Friday night will be viewed across the Blue Demons roster as one of the better opportunities to win a conference game this season.
Last year, Georgetown’s only two conference wins came against DePaul.
For the Blue Demons, it’s a chance to climb out of the Big East basement; for Georgetown, it’s a measuring stick game to show the rest of the league that they are well above where they were the last few seasons.
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