NEW YORK — Out of a timeout, his team making one last push Wednesday night, Jayden Epps stepped to the foul line for a one-and-one at Madison Square Garden, the arena hushed around him. His Georgetown Hoyas trailed by three to DePaul in the first round of the Big East tournament. There were 11.8 seconds on the clock.
Epps shot 75 percent from the stripe during the regular season and 76.2 percent for his three-year college career. But when he released the free throw, it floated as if someone had popped it with a needle. It was a complete, total, off-center air ball, leaving Epps to stare at his right hand, then wipe it against his shorts.
There are a million ways to lose a basketball game.
Somehow, this was one of them.
“It was just … the ball slipped out of my hand,” Epps said after the 71-67 loss that probably ended the Hoyas’ season. “It was just one of those moments. I can’t really tell you what happened right there. It was just a bad one for me.”
Of course, the game wasn’t decided on Epps’s errant free throw. There were 39 minutes 48 seconds of play before it. Had he made both, the Hoyas still would have trailed by one without the ball, needing a few breaks to go their way.
After trailing by 15 points early, the Hoyas switched to a press and zone, made a massive run and eventually led by seven at the start of the second half. But DePaul dissected them in the paint, then made clutch shots late. For Georgetown, the end looked a lot like it did a year ago, almost to the day. In two Big East tournaments under Coach Ed Cooley, it lost on the first night, not even teasing a miracle run to the NCAA tournament.
Georgetown’s season is most likely finished at 17-15, a mark that includes three losses to the Blue Demons. DePaul (14-18) advanced to play No. 2 seed Creighton on Thursday night.
“I thought our emotional discipline, our physical discipline was null and void in all three of the games that we played against them,” Cooley said. “I tell our guys all the time: ‘Dumb will get you beat every night. Dumb will get you beat.’ You have to have some emotional intelligence. You have to have some physical toughness.
“It goes to tell you how far we still have to go,” the 55-year-old coach continued. “I’m very, very disappointed in our emotional and just physical presence, our toughness. Toughness is not just physical; it’s an emotional attachment to winning.”
Heading into the conference tournament, the Hoyas faced some pretty tough math. Not only did they have to run the table in New York to make the NCAA field, but they would have had to do so without their best player, freshman Thomas Sorber, who had season-ending surgery in late February. On Monday, as the Hoyas stretched inside their practice facility, Sorber laid on a medical table next to the court, his left foot in a boot. And Wednesday, as Georgetown went through layup lines at the Garden, he wheeled himself around, unable to walk, let alone run or dunk.
Senior Micah Peavy, the Hoyas’ offensive engine, finished with a team-high 26 points. For energy off the bench, Cooley turned to Curtis Williams Jr. (11 points) for 28 minutes. When Georgetown switched to a press in the first half, DePaul cooled off and the Hoyas accelerated. They went on a 19-4 run to erase a 15-point deficit. On the other side of the break, they seemed in control. But until the final few minutes, the Hoyas eased their pressure and DePaul wore them down.
NJ Benson, the Blue Demons’ 6-foot-8, 235-pound center, bullied Drew Fielder, Sorber’s replacement. And though Fielder worked inside for a few dunks of his own, he fouled out with about five minutes left, leaving Cooley with no option but to go small. Peavy switched onto Benson. The Hoyas upped the pressure again, pulling within three. Then DePaul fouled Epps, he walked to the line, and his first attempt hit nothing but air.
“It’s really tough,” Peavy said. “We had a goal of making the NCAA tournament. This was going to be our way — win four games.”
Peavy, a transfer from TCU, is out of eligibility. While recovering, Sorber will weigh coming back or leaping to the NBA. The Hoyas can otherwise return their starting backcourt of Epps and Malik Mack, who transferred from Harvard before the season. They won eight more games than last year. They also flatlined in conference play, finishing with five wins in 18 games after starting the season 12-2.
Asked after Wednesday’s loss to assess the program through a wider lens, Cooley pointed to the marginal progress and called out Big East coaches for snubbing Sorber. The conference recently named Connecticut’s Liam McNeeley its freshman of the year.
“Building an organization is a process,” Cooley said. “I’m never trying to get anywhere fast, right? The faster you rise, the quicker you fall. I’m really proud of where we’ve come. We’ve had more injuries this year that we’ve gone through as an organization than any of my 19 years as a head coach, and I thought we dealt with it the best we can.
“When you lose someone, who in my opinion, my humble opinion, should have at a bare minimum been the rookie of the year — bare minimum should have been the rookie of the year in this league — his impact for us takes nothing away from McNeeley. Nothing at all. … But the fact that these coaches didn’t recognize that, I pray that kid comes back. I pray he comes back. He will be the Big East player of the year, he will be a first-team all-American, he will be a lottery pick, and we will be cutting the nets down in this building next year at this time … That’s exactly the way I feel.”
When he finished, Cooley smacked the table and walked out of the room, assistants and staff trailing behind him. There was nothing left to do but head home.
