Georgetown 57 Rutgers53
PISCATAWAY – The ball rolled around the cylinder, spinning quickly and wildly like Rutgers’ tumbling season. And when Rob Hodgson’s last-ditch 3-pointer rattled out it may have taken the Scarlet Knights’ NCAA Tournament hopes with it.
In a game they had to win, the Scarlet Knights fell behind Georgetown from the start and trailed by 13 with just over five minutes to play. After looking shockingly passive and flat, they finally stormed back with the fire expected of a team playing for their NCAA lives. But in the end the comeback fell just short, as Hodgson’s potential game-tying 3-pointer rimmed out with three seconds to play and Rutgers fell to the Hoyas 57-53 in front of a sellout crowd of 8,507 at the RAC.
“It was a good look. It was almost ths of the way down, and it rolled back out,” said Hodgson, who had 10 points, seven rebounds and five steals. But it was his missed 3-pointer that will leave a melancholy feeling from Senior Night, his and Geoff Billet’s last game at the RAC – unless the slumping Scarlet Knights find themselves hosting an NIT game instead of going to the Big Dance.
The loss was Rutgers’ third straight, and dropped it to 17-10 overall and 9-8 in the Big East. And it may have burst the Scarlet Knights’ NCAA bubble as well. They will likely need an upset Saturday at No. 11 Miami, or a repeat of last season’s surprise run to the Big East semifinals, or both.
And the way they’ve played lately, both are possible, but neither is likely.
“This looked an awful lot like the Seton Hall game, and boy that’s scary,” RU coach Kevin Bannon said, referring to Sunday’s flat start and unexpected loss to the Pirates. “When you don’t learn your lessons, especially this late in the year, you deserve what you get.”
If they learned any lessons last night, they were hard ones. Despite a rousing ceremony before the game honoring Hodgson and Billet, the sellout crowd was eerily quiet and the team amazingly flat.
Georgetown (14-13, 6-11) didn’t even use much of its vaunted full-court trap, but just pressured RU’s ballhandlers into 11 first-half turnovers. The Hoyas were no offensive juggernaut themselves and had just two assists at halftime, but 6-10 Jameel Watkins and 6-11 Ruben Boumtje Boumtje helped Georgetown to an amazing 24 offensive boards.
In all Georgetown used second shots, third shots, however many shots it tooksteadily build up 13-point lead at 44-31 with 10:41 left. That’s when RU began doubling the post with Hodgson and sub Joel Salvi, whose back-to-back dunks off feeds from Earl Johnson (game-high 14 points) ignited the team.
With Georgetown leading 48-40 Rutgers went on a 13-5 run to tie the score at 53-all with 1:14 to play.
But Nat Burton broke the tie with two foul shots, and after Johnson’s entry pass to Rashod Kent was bobbled and stolen with 28 seconds left, Anthony Perry hit a free throw to make the lead three. And after Hodgson’s miss, Burton’s last free throw was anticlimactic.