Third time’s the charm against No. 1 UConn?
There are things about the Georgetown women’s basketball team that might shock the first-time observer. The relentless pressure. The fearless, breakneck pace. The oozing self-confidence.
Get used to it.
Recommended Stories
When the Hoyas’ premier scorer, sophomore guard Sugar Rodgers, pulled up at the 3-point line on a fast break early in the second half of Georgetown’s NCAA second-round win over Maryland last week, everything about the move screamed like it was a bad idea.
| Sweet 16 |
| No. 5 Georgetown vs. No. 1 Connecticut |
| Where » Licouras Center, Philadelphia |
| When » Sunday, noon |
| TV » ESPN |
“We had no rebounders or anything,” Hoyas coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “We stood on the bench [clapping]: ‘Here we go,’ because that’s what we do, and you have to live with her missing it.”
But Rodgers didn’t miss, and that steadfast devotion to the idea that she won’t the next time either is part of why the Hoyas (24-10) are convinced that they can pull off the impossible and upset No. ?1-seeded Connecticut (34-1) in the Sweet 16.
Georgetown lost the teams’ first meeting in late February by just 10 points, one of only six teams to come within that margin or beat the Huskies this season. In the Big East tournament rematch, the Hoyas held Maya Moore to a season-low six points, keeping her under 10 points for just the fifth time in the 151 career games that Moore has played.
Williams-Flournoy admits that holding Moore down again will be unlikely, but there’s no chance that the Hoyas are getting rid of the chip on the shoulder that carried them through the first two rounds of the NCAAs for the first time since 1993. Outspoken senior Monica McNutt (Holy Cross) wasn’t afraid of Maryland’s legacy, and after beating the Terrapins she said, “Why not us?” when asked about the Huskies.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” McNutt said. “I don’t feel that I’ve been boastful. I’ve been confident. I’ve stated facts. I’m not taking back any of my words. I’m not going to bite my tongue. I believe in my girls, I think we’re on the brink of doing something special.”
The Hoyas also know they’ve got an extra bit of unintended inspiration from a fellow D.C. neighbor — the one who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and didn’t have Georgetown getting out of the first round in his bracket for ESPN.
“We go back and we look at the Barack pick,” Rodgers said. “We say, ‘Oh, Barack didn’t pick us here, and he didn’t pick us here, and we won there. So he didn’t pick us here in the UConn game, hopefully we just won.”
