Game 32: Big East Tournament First Round – No. 11 Georgetown Hoyas (14-17) vs No. 6 DePaul Blue Demons (16-15)
Where: Madison Square Garden
TV: Peacock (John Fanta, Donny Marshall)
Radio: Team 980 AM (Rich Chvotkin), Sirius XM app
Series: Georgetown leads 37-18 as the teams split the series this season.
BET History: DePaul leads 2-1 including a 71-67 victory over the Hoyas in the first round last season.
BET Streaks: Georgetown has lost four straight BET games and has been eliminated in their tournament opener in 8 of the last 9 events.
KenPom Rankings: Georgetown 83, DePaul 101
KenPom Odds: Georgetown has a 56%-win probability with a projected score of 70-68.
DraftKings Line: Georgetown +1.5, o/u 133.5 ML +100
On Monday Ed Cooley said that he thought this was the most wide open Big East Tournament in all his years around the league from an assistant at Boston College under Al Skinner to his time as head coach at both Providence and now Georgetown.
It can be difficult to build momentum in this era of NIL and roster turnover but ending a four-game losing streak in the Big East Tournament may provide some consolation for Cooley’s Hoyas going into Ed’s fourth season.
Now the Hoyas are unlikely to win four games in a row – especially without KJ Lewis – but it would be nice to avoid losing multiple games to DePaul in consecutive seasons.
From 1980 to 2016, Georgetown was 30-7 in BET openers and never lost back-to-back.
Since 2017, Georgetown is 1-8 in BET openers with two four-game losing streaks sandwiched around their 2021 Big East Tournament Championship.