Marquette @ Georgetown preview
Madison Square Garden
Last Meeting ( Jan 2, 2021 ) Marquette 64, Georgetown 60
Georgetown and Marquette ended underwhelming regular seasons by playing better in the final weeks, but only one team will move on and possibly make an unlikely run in the Big East tournament.
Eighth-seeded Georgetown heads to Madison Square Garden with six wins in its past 10 games for a Wednesday afternoon game with ninth-seeded Marquette, which owns four wins in its past five contests.
The first-round winner gets a Thursday date against top-seeded Villanova, which is without Collin Gillespie due to a season-ending knee injury.
Georgetown (9-12, 7-9 Big East) started this season by losing eight of its first 11 games, a stretch that included a five-game losing streak from Dec. 20 to Jan. 9.
The losing streak was followed by four straight postponements due to COVID-19 issues, but since returning, the Hoyas have claimed wins over Providence, Creighton, Butler, Seton Hall, DePaul and Xavier. Georgetown ended the regular season with a 98-82 loss Saturday at UConn when Jahvon Blair scored 22 points and the Hoyas trailed by 20 points 15 minutes into the game.
"The way we started out the game, we didn't have the intensity or the effort that we needed to be in this ballgame," Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing said.
Blair's average of 15.9 points a game leads Georgetown, but he has not started the past two games. Blair is one of four players averaging in double figures for the Hoyas, who average 71.7 points per game.
Marquette (13-13, 8-11) struggled for most of this season before coming on lately.
The Golden Eagles lost six of seven from Jan. 23 to Feb. 14, but including a 16-point win over Butler on Feb. 17, they are 4-1 and have averaged 72.2 points in those games. Dawson Garcia has averaged 15.4 points in his past five since going scoreless at Seton Hall Feb. 14, while D.J. Carton has scored at least 15 points in six of his past nine games.
On Saturday, Marquette ended the regular season with a 66-59 home win over Xavier as the Golden Eagles shot 51 percent from the field.
"Our guys have worked," Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski said. "And they've prepared well. We've listened to each other and tried to focus at the task at hand of getting better and figuring out ways to win. And to our guys' credit, we've been able to do that and, hopefully, we have more in us."
Garcia leads the Golden Eagles in scoring with an average of 13.2 points a game, followed by Carton at 12.8.
--Field Level Media