WASHINGTON, D.C. – Even though it was a “snowmaggedon” in the Nation’s Capital Saturday afternoon, nothing could stop Georgetown’s Jason Clark and Austin Freeman who combined for 49 points during Georgetown’s 103-90 to hand the Villanova Wildcats their first Big East loss this season.

 

After a crowd-pumping thrashing of the Duke Blue Devils last Saturday, complete with President Barack Obama in attendance, the Hoyas have won their second big Saturday match-up in a row, despite an upset earlier this week from University of South Florida.

Freeman led with 25 points and now joins the ranks of 1,000 point scorers for Georgetown and Clark, who shot an astounding 6-for-6 from behind the arc during the first half, finished with a career high 24.

 “It was after the first couple of shots, you get the groove in you where you feel like you can't miss, so yeah I think (I knew it was going to be a good game) after the first couple of shots,” commented Clark after the game.

And Clark was right.

The Hoyas (17-5, 9-4) sparked by a  9-0 run midway through the first half, forced 16 Villanova turnovers and ran away with the game to lead by 19 at halftime, 50-31.

The Wildcats (20-2, 9-1) would force Georgetown point guard to commit his fourth foul less than five minutes into the start of the second half.

With their crucial playmaker now sidelined, the Hoyas were forced to band together and run the court without Wright.

Led by Freeman, Clark and center Greg Monroe, the Hoyas were able to fight back against the attack from Villanova, but it was after the return of Wright with around nine minutes left to the play, that the Wildcats really began to claw their way back.

With 5:39 left in the game, Villanova’s Corey Stokes sank a two pointer from the field and Scottie Reynolds added one of two free throws that put the Wildcats within 10 of the Hoyas.

But Georgetown would outscore Villanova 12-7 to end the game and the Wildcats’ chance of any remarkable come-from-behind-win.

“I've said that we have good players in the locker room,” said Wright. “The key was (Clark, Freeman and Monroe) controlled the game. Those guys behind me did a very good job of controlling the flow of the game.”

Not only did Georgetown dismantle Villanova’s offense during the first half, they shut down the Wildcats’ top scorer, Scottie Reynolds and held him to only two first half points.

“It's a 40 minute game you're not going to be able to slow Scottie down the whole time,” said Hoyas head coach John Thompson III.  “The answer is the same I gave at Villanova a couple of weeks ago, he's too good of a player, too experienced of a player and they collectively do too good of a job to get him shots. He didn't force anything in the first half and he came home in the second half clearly decided to be more aggressive and he was successful.”

Reynolds would score 22 points during the second half to finish with a total 24 and shot 9-of-11 from the free throw line.  Corey Fisher scored 24 points for the Wildcats as well.

"That was not one of our better performances but you got to give Georgetown most of the credit. They jumped on us and they're a very difficult team,” said Villanova head coach Jay Wright.

Monroe contributed 19 points, Julian Vaughn 13 and Hollis Thompson scored 12 points for the Hoyas bench.

The Hoyas will leave the over 20” of snow that fell on Washington, D.C. this past weekend and head to battle in Providence on Tuesday, February 9 followed by a trip to Rutgers on Valentine’s Day.

GAME NOTES:

- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former NFL Commissioner and Georgetown alum Paul Tagliabue were in attendance.

- Despite one of the worst snowstorms to hit the Washington metro area since the 1920’s, over 11,000 fans made the voyage to the Verizon Center on Saturday.