Georgetown, Marquette Post Opening Night Victories
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
While Wednesday night’s opening-round games of the BIG EAST Tournament Presented by the Jeep Brand perhaps lacked a bit of the cache that Thursday’s quarterfinals and the rest of this week’s Garden gathering certainly will possess, the doubleheader did present an opportunity to see a pair of BIG EAST stars in what could have been making their final appearances on the Garden’s big stage.
In what will go down as a disappointing season for Georgetown this year – unless the Hoyas run the table at the Garden this weekend - it meant D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, the Hoyas’ ultra-talented senior guard, was just one upset loss to DePaul away from calling it a career with the Hoyas.
It meant it was a possible last look at one of the best to ever don the Georgetown uniform. The only Hoyas player ever to surpass 1,000 points in BIG EAST games, the school’s fifth-all time leading scorer (1,133 points) and the only Georgetown player to ever log 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 350 assists in a career.
It also presented the opportunity for the New York basketball audience to get an up close and personal look at Marquette’s Henry Ellenson, the BIG EAST’s newly-minted Freshman of the Year. Wednesday night’s game against St. John’s marked Ellenson’s first visit to the Garden this season after the Golden Eagles’ regularly-scheduled appearance vs. St. John’s at the Garden at the end of January was snowed out thanks to Mother Nature dumping 20-something inches of snow on the city and forcing the game to be cancelled. It was made up a day later at Carnesecca Arena on St. John’s campus.
So with Ellenson being regularly discussed as being a projected lottery pick in this year’s NBA Draft, Wednesday night presented the first – and possible last – chance to get a look at what all the hype has been about.
But there will be at least one more Smith-Rivera sighting at the Garden Thursday, ditto for Ellenson, as the duo will have another chance to add to their remarkable seasons as Smith-Rivera scored a game-high 20 points as the eighth-seeded Hoyas knocked off ninth-seeded DePaul, 70-53, in the opener Wednesday night. Marquette then needed every bit of Ellenson’s 27-point, 14-rebound night as the seventh-seeded Golden Eagles survived a spirited performance by 10th-seeded St. John’s before posting a 101-93 victory in the nightcap.
Georgetown, which recorded its’ third victory of the season over the Blue Demons, will now meet top-seeded Villanova in the opening quarterfinal Thursday at noon. Marquette, which also got 23 points from JaJuan Johnson and 19 from Haanif Cheatham, will face No. 2 Xavier Thursday at 7 p.m.
“You know, it’s been a difficult year,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. “There’s been a lot of stuff that’s thrown at us. But…the guys never stopped fighting. They also never stopped believing, which is difficult when you’re going through the stretch we went through. They understand if we get everyone out there, we play well, we can play with anyone. We’ve shown that.”
Smith-Rivera certainly showed it, as did senior center Bradley Hayes, who had been sidelined with a broken wrist and was only being cleared to play after the Hoyas’ Wednesday’s morning shoot-around. He finished with 10 points and seven rebounds in the win.
“It was a mental boost (getting Hayes back),” Smith-Rivera said. “He made his presence felt for everybody else on the team. I was excited to play with him again.”
Georgetown held a 35-24 lead at the half as the Hoyas forced DePaul (9-22) into 12 first-half turnovers. The Blue Demons pulled with four points on several occasions early in the second half before Smith-Rivera scored eight straight points over a 3:19 span and the Georgetown lead was at 47-35 with 12:00 to play. DePaul never got closer than 13 points the rest of the way as the Hoyas held leads as large as 18 points.
So the Garden crowd will get at least one more look at the one they call “DSR” when the Hoyas battle the top-seeded Wildcats – again putting Smith-Rivera one loss away from calling it a career.
“Every game from here on out is a must-win for everybody, not just me because it’s my last year,” Smith-Rivera said. “You just don’t want to reflect on mistakes and say we could have, would have or should have. We can turn it around now.”
As for Ellenson the victory capped a memorable day as he received his Freshman of the Year award earlier in the day and later found himself and his teammates using the Knicks locker room as their own. In fact some of the Marquette players took time to take some pictures prior to the game, while Elllenson found his No. 13 jersey hanging in one of the more prominent lockers in the room.
“It was an honor to go receive the award here,” Ellenson said. “Really special to be named BIG EAST Freshman of the Year. And then we go have a pre-game meal and come (back) here again. My jersey is in Melo’s (Carmelo Anthony) locker (and) that gives me a big smile. The people taking pictures of the locker? That was me. It’s been a great day.”
The Golden Eagles (20-12) were holding a 17-point lead (75-58) following a Cheatham layup with 11:44 to play and it appeared Marquette was in control as they looked to secure their spot in the quarterfinals. But scrappy St. John’s, which got 29 points from Christian Jones, was not about to go down without a fight, not on their home court in front of 12,604 fans.
And when the Johnnies (8-24) finally caught – and passed – Marquette when Ron Mvouika’s three-ball put St. John’s up, 89-88, the Golden Eagles were left looking for a savior. They found three of them in Ellenson, Cheatham and Johnson, who scored 11 of Marquette’s final 13 points and they escaped with the hard-fought win.
“Any time you win a BIG EAST Tournament game it means a great deal,” Wojciechowski said. “This team was in an unusual situation for us because 70% of our team had never set foot in this building and we weren’t able to have a shoot-around so when they walked in they were wide-eyed. When we get the New York Knicks’ locker room and the guys are taking pictures, (I’m saying) ‘There’s a game to play here fellas.”
And the Golden Eagles played just well enough for an encore performance vs. Xavier in the quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Thursday night.
“They know who Xavier is. Xavier is a team that is capable of winning a national championship,” Wojciechowsi said. “(Musketeers’ coach) Chris Mack really could be National Coach of the Year. We know we’ll have to be at our best in order to beat them. We feel very fortunate to have that opportunity.”