DANIEL KREYTAK/THE HOYA
Men’s Basketball
After suffering a tough loss to Butler (15-7, 4-6 Big East) Tuesday night, the Georgetown men’s basketball team (13-10, 6-4 Big East) looks to get back on track Saturday night on the road against Seton Hall (16-6, 6-4 Big East). The Pirates, led by Head Coach Kevin Willard, are enjoying one of their most successful seasons in recent history, and they have the potential to reach the NCAA tournament if they can keep up their strong play. Seton Hall defeated Providence (18-5, 6-4 Big East) on the road at the Dunkin Donuts Center in January and lost to Villanova (19-3, 9-1 Big East) at home by just one point.
In their last game, the Pirates defeated the Marquette Golden Eagles (15-8, 4-6 Big East) by a score of 79-62. The current Big East Player of the Week, sophomore guard Isaiah Whitehead, scored a game-high 21 points while sophomore forward Angel Delgado had a double-double with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Whitehead also added eight assists, six rebounds, three blocks and two steals. This season, Georgetown has struggled to defend breakout guards on opposing teams — Providence junior guard Kris Dunn scored 26 points last week against it — so limiting Whitehead will be key.
“The teams that don’t get as much appreciation are just as tough to battle night in and night out [because] they’ve got some great players,” senior guard and co-captain D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera said of Big East competition early in the season. “But hopefully at the end of the race, we’re on top.”
KARLA LEYJA/THE HOYA
Women’s Basketball
The Georgetown women’s basketball team (12-9, 5-6 Big East) returns to McDonough Arena this weekend after winning three straight games on the road. Georgetown will face off against conference rivals Marquette (11-11, 6-5 Big East) and DePaul (17-7, 9-2 Big East) — two teams that have already beaten it this season.
“Being able to come off that road swing with three straight road wins, it shows our growth. It shows our maturity,” Head Coach Natasha Adair said. “Those last three games — Villanova, Providence, Creighton — the light bulb came on. They’re getting it. … Three games on the road — that’s pretty good.”
In its matchup with Marquette earlier this season, Georgetown took a commanding lead in the first half. The Hoyas led by 10 points at the conclusion of the first quarter and then strung together a 7-0 run in the second period to extend their advantage to 18 points. Going into the locker room at halftime, Georgetown led by 12.
IPPOLITO/AUERBACH: Super Bowl 50 Commentaries
IPPOLITO: Broncos’ Defense Must Stifle Running Game
Eighteen Super Bowls ago, the Denver Broncos made history by winning their first title after defeating the heavily favored Green Bay Packers. During the trophy presentation, owner Pat Bowlen declared, “This one’s for John!” in reference to John Elway, the hall-of-fame quarterback who put this team together and is now the general manager. In 2014, Bowlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and has not attended a game this season. Bowlen will not be in attendance at the Super Bowl this weekend in Santa Clara, Calif.. Like Bowlen now, and the entire team in 1997, the Broncos are underdogs again. However, there is still reason to hope and believe that Denver can win this one, and win it for Bowlen.
The Broncos will rely on what got them to the Super Bowl in the first place: defense. The Broncos, by most statistical measures, boasted the league’s best defense over the course of the 2015 season and were at their best two weeks ago against quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. Denver pressured Brady all afternoon and hit him 23 times. Just as they did two weeks ago, Denver’s major pass rushers, Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Derek Wolfe and Malik Jackson, must find ways to pressure the Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and force mistakes. By forcing Newton to throw on the run or into tight coverage windows, Denver’s ball-hawking secondary should have opportunities to knock down or intercept passes. If Denver can win the turnover battle, then it can pull off the upset.
AUERBACH: Carolina’s Postseason Dominance Poses Threat
The last time the Carolina Panthers played in the Super Bowl, it was 2004. They lost the championship game to the New England Patriots, an American Football Conference team led by a young Tom Brady capturing his second Super Bowl ring. This Sunday, the Panthers will again face off against a superior quarterback in the big game, but this time, in the form of Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. However, based on the Panthers’ outstanding defense, multi-faceted running game and versatile quarterback, this year’s Super Bowl will likely tell a very different story than it did 12 years ago.
The Broncos’ defense kept them at an elite level this season — especially while undergoing the turmoil of having to sit Manning and start inexperienced Brock Osweiler — and led the league in overall and passing defense. However, it would be a mistake to consider the Panthers’ defense inferior by comparison. The Panthers ranked sixth in the league in overall defense, behind the Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, Houston Texans, New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals — and the Panthers have already beaten two of those teams. They also boast some of the best individual defensive players in the game: Luke Kuechly, Josh Norman and Jared Allen, to name a few.
Men’s Basketball Commentary
With just eight games left in the season, the Georgetown men’s basketball team (13-10, 6-4 Big East) finds itself three games out of first place in the Big East and extremely far off the NCAA Tournament bubble.
The tournament committee takes 36 at-large bids — teams that didn’t win their conference tournament — and given the Hoyas’ inconsistent play this season, it is hard to imagine them winning three games in three days to claim the Big East tournament title.
So, in order to make the tournament, the Hoyas must win enough games, convincingly and against quality opponents, to earn an at-large bid. After losing 87-76 in what would have been a important win on the road against Butler (15-7, 4-6 Big East), Georgetown must now face the rest of its schedule with absolute determination to win every game possible. Two of the games, at Villanova (19-3, 9-1 Big East) and at Providence (18-5, 6-4 Big East), are arguably Georgetown’s two toughest tests of the season, which could potentially give it two more losses.
Men’s Tennis
The Georgetown men’s tennis team (1-3) will face an important rival when it travels to Princeton (1-2) for a road match this Saturday. Coming off a tight 4-3 win against Navy (2-3) last weekend, the Hoyas hope to carry their momentum into their only match against an Ivy League opponent this season.
“We haven’t beaten an Ivy League team in the spring season in a long time,” junior Jordan Portner said. “They’ve got some really good guys at the top of the lineup … so we’re going to have to stay in there and play really good defense.”
Portner and freshman Michael Chen secured the doubles point for the Hoyas last weekend against Navy in a 6-4 win in the number one doubles slot. Chen’s performances in both singles and doubles play earned him the Big East Men’s Tennis Athlete of the Week accolade.
Track & Field
Following a slew of broken personal records and top finishes at the Pennsylvania State University National Invitational last weekend, the men’s and No. 11 women’s indoor track and field teams will travel to Boston for the Boston University Scarlet and White Invitational.
Both teams will then head to Staten Island, N.Y., for the Villanova Open Ocean Breeze meet, and the men’s team will also send a contingent of runners to the USA Junior Cross Country Championships in Bend, Ore., this weekend.
After an impressive performance by the men’s distance medley relay team and a record-breaking showing by the women, the Blue and Gray will now turn its attention to other events.
Upon Further Review
Earlier this week, the Cleveland Browns put NFL fans — and Johnny Manziel — out of their misery by announcing that the troubled quarterback would be released from the organization. It was a liberating move for not just the league’s most destitute franchise, but also for who was once football’s most exciting player, is now back on the open market. For the 31 other general managers in the NFL with the chance to sign “Money” Manziel, the multi-million dollar question has to be asked: Have two years in Cleveland ruined the former phenom forever?
It is hard to fully comprehend the magnitude of Manziel’s catastrophic fall from grace these past two years. For a brief moment during his Heisman-winning season at Texas A&M, Johnny Manziel was seemingly the only football player that mattered in America. For months at a time he dominated ESPN coverage, juking and sidestepping on Saturdays for highlight videos that went viral on Sundays. The sporting community is normally so adept at assigning nicknames — see “Megatron,” “Matty Ice” and “Primetime” — but Manziel was so mind-numbingly good, football fans’ brains malfunctioned and out popped “Johnny Football.” Some might consider his nickname an an excessive display of greatness, but think — when has there ever been a “Charlie Basketball” or “Frankie Baseball”?
The Water Cooler
For the first time since 1985, this year’s Super Bowl will be held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Coincidentally, Super Bowl XIX in 1985 also marks the only time in NFL history when the host of the Super Bowl actually won the big game, as the hometown San Francisco 49ers beat the Miami Dolphins at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Calif.
Now, only three years removed from a near victory in Super Bowl XLVII, to say the 49ers have declined would be kind. In the last calendar year, the team has reverted from a talented perennial contender to an epitome of mediocrity. Ironically, the man who is responsible for bringing the Super Bowl back to the Bay Area and hosting what may be the most-watched event in television history, 49ers owner Jed York, is also responsible for initiating and accelerating his team’s decline, teaching the world a lesson on how not to run an NFL team.