Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Washington, D.C–
We know its early on the in the Ed Cooley coaching period, but tonight might go down as one of those games that will be a classic in a few years, unfortunately for the Hoyas, they were one foot on the wrong side of an 84-83 loss TCU tonight at Captial One Arena.
After the game Hoyas Head Coach Ed Cooley praised the officiating crew tonight and said, “they are some of the best in the business and if he had made the call of out of bounds, it could have been reviewed, but since he didn’t it’s not something they can overturn. Clearly one of the wildest endings we have seen in quite some time.
One thing that we did see tonight is that this Hoyas team at full strength and having a chance to play together for more than one game is going to make a huge difference. Cooley said this was a Big East style of basketball game tonight. Just how I like it.
For those who may have missed those final seconds of inbounding the ball under their own basket with only 2.7 seconds remaining, TCU guard Micah Peavy heaved a half-court pass to forward Emanuel Miller down the near sideline. Miller caught the pass and banked home the incredible game-winning three-pointer as time expired. Heartbreak to say the least for the Hoyas, who also battled from 16 down to even stay in this game.
Jayden Epps scored 24 points for the Hoyas, Dontrez Styles scored 18, reserve Ismael Massoud scored 16 points and Jay Heath scored 10 points for the Hoyas. This was the first game that Massoud has seen so far this season due to injury.
The real tail of this game was that TCU led 44-36 at halftime and extended the lead to 51-36 two minutes into the second half before Georgetown began its rally. Massoud and Heath made 3s and Epps made a layup to reduce the deficit to 57-54. Georgetown went ahead and led 81-75 before Nelson and Coles made consecutive 3s in a 10-second span to level the score with 1:29 left.
It was Epps again who sank a pair of foul shots with 2.7 seconds left to give Georgetown an 83-81 lead and surely had the game wrapped up, that was we thought. On the inbounds, TCU’s Micah Peavy ran the baseline, and like a quarterback rolling to the right to evade pressure, threw the ball on a near-straight line to Miller who caught it, turned, took a dribble and launched it before falling to the floor.
Cooley also sort of put this game behind him and said that the team is much better than 5 games ago and they have a week off before facing Syracuse on Saturday morning at home. Should be a great match-up, perhaps this team can finally get “one” win over a team that matters before moving on to some real Big East games.