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Georgetown is 1-1 so far in the Old Spice Classic with a game against Maryland on Sunday night. There were good things and bad things in both games one a 58-50 win over Wichita State and the other a 90-78 loss to a very talented Tennessee team. Ultimately though, this is going to turn out being a great experience for this young Hoyas team and should serve them well as the season progresses.

Wichita State played Georgetown really tough as a mid-major, but Georgetown really let them hang around by turning the ball over, shooting poorly and not rebounding the ball very well. The Hoyas got a great first half from Greg Monroe (who really continues to impress me especially on the defensive end of the floor; he is just very active), a great second half from DaJuan Summers (who seems to be coming alive on both ends of the floor) and a great overall game from Austin Freeman (whose scoring touch is an absolute must for the Hoyas). Jessie Sapp continues to come up with big plays at the right moment and Chris Wright gets ever more comfortable running the offense and driving to the hoop.

Georgetown will overcome the shooting deficiencies they had in this game (and in fact they did against Tennessee, shooting very well for the most part), buth the turnovers and rebounding are definitely things they need to work on. Wichita State played good defense on the Hoyas, but overall they just did not take care of the basketball the way they need to and they were killed on the defensive glass. The Shockers got a lot of second chance points and although they only shot something like 23% from the field, they should have been held to an even lower shooting percentage given the number of offensive rebounds they were able to grab. I don’t think it is lack of hustle, I just don’t think they have gotten good position, which is something they should improve on throughout the season. The turnovers thus far have mostly appeared to be lazy passes and not coming to the ball, both things I expect this team to become sharper with as the season progresses. They are worrisome however and the Hoyas do need to fix them before Memphis comes to town or they travel to Durham to take on Duke if they are going to have any chance winning either of those games.

As for the Tennessee game, the problems were much the same as above. Since I have already spent a great deal of time writing about the turnovers and the rebounding, I will just mention two more quick instances from this game. In terms of rebounding, the Hoyas were solid for most ofthe game, but it killed them at a crucial point in the game when Tennessee, via a couple fouls and some poor rebounding by Georgetown, was able to cut an eight point Georgetown lead to a two point Georgetown lead in one possession. This was a major turning point in the basketball game.

As for turnovers, they were again of the lazy variety. Four plays in particular by unlikely people really worried me. Three of them were just awful, lazy passes by Austin Freeman. Freeman generally looked sluggish in this game and his outside shot wasn’t falling at all, but that will usually be falling and he still managed to get into double digits on the offensive end so that wasn’t at all what woried me about him. It was his general laziness on the offensive end which led to some truly awful passes which led to turnovers and fast break points the other way by Tennessee. The fourth turnover that bothered me was another lazy pass, this time on an inbounds play by Jessie Sapp. Jessie played a great game overall, except for this pass. It was just awful and to come from a senior leader late in the game is just unacceptable. I am confident that it won’t happen againand that Sapp will fix it. I really think he has developed into exactly what this team needs from him. He just can’t make passes like that anymore.

Despite these problems (along with the continuing struggles from Henry Sims and the lack of real contribution from Julian Vaughn, who really has not been any help in the rebounding department) I thought the Tennessee game showed us some good things and paved the way for this team to get a lot better as the season rolls on. This game showed them that they are talented enough to play with elite teams and versatile enough to hang in any type of game. They can certainly play the slow grind it out Big East style, but they have the legs and the skill to play a run and gun game too. I don’t want to say they should have won this game, but they very well could have. The kids are really talented and once they learn to protect the ball better, they are going to be able to hang with some really good teams and can probably even win a couple of surprising games.

The bottom line is that without Cameron Tatum having the game of his life, Georgetown may just be able to win that game despite having those turnovers and rebounding struggles. Once they sharpen their game, this team should be able to push the Big East and compete with just about anyone in the country. Maybe they won’t win a whole lot of those games, but they will only get better in them as the season progresses.