New York-Georgetown showed major improvements in coach Ed Coley’s second season when Micah Peavy got a seat on the All-Big East First Team and injured the Center Thomas Sorber made the third team and the conference’s all-ROOKIE team.
There were still moments of inconsistency for the seventh seeded Hoyas (17-14), which opposes the 10-seeded Depaul in the first round of the Big East tournament on Wednesday evening with the winner going forward to meet Second-Seed Creighton on Thursday.
Hoyas improved by eight wins after going 9-23 2023-24, their third straight 20-loss season. Cooley was able to land Peavy in the transfer portal after three seasons at TCU and recruited Sorber.
Peavy was an average of 16.9 points in total and 19.2 in conference games when Hoyas finished with eight wins in these games. He became the first Hoya to do Big East First Team since Jessie Govan 2018-19.
Before he underwent a seasonal photo operation, Sorber was an average of 14.5 points and 8.5 returns, which got the league’s beginner a week honors seven times.
Hoyas is 2-4 since Sorber’s last match and ended the season with a loss of 83-77 at Depaul on Sunday that annoyed Cooley. While Peavy scored 29 points, Hoya’s 56.6 percent allowed shooting.
“We know that to win games, everyone must rise,” Peavy said. “We have not had a full squad for most of the year, but we have still been in close play, and we have learned to perform when it counts.”
Depaul (13-18) almost beat Villanova in the opening round last season before taking a one-point loss to end a season 3-29. Blue Demons improved with 10 wins in coach Chris Holtmann’s debut season and comes in a row over Providence and Georgetown.
Depaul scored at least 80 points and shot at least 50 percent in the victories over Fries and Hoyas. It was the first time Blue Demons has shot at least 50 percent in consecutive conference games since January 2-6, 2019 and the first time it received at least 80 in consecutive conference games since March 27, March 2, 2022.
“I think you want to play well late,” Holtmann said. “One of our goals this year, I said,” I would like us to say we play well late. “And it’s clearly demonstrated here.
Depaul is led by CJ Gunn (12.8 points) and Isaiah Rivera (10.7), which was combined for 38 points on 13-AV-26 shooting on Saturday. Rivera made a season high 21 against Hoyas for her fifth straight double -digit excursion.
-Larry Fleisher, Field Level Media
