Both Georgetown and Depaul are looking for speed at the Big East tournament.
Hoyas and Blue Demons can each close the regular season with two straight wins in their matchup Saturday afternoon in Chicago.
Georgetown (17-13, 8-11 Big East) snapped a three-game losing line with Tuesday’s 75-73 home victory over Villanova. Jayden Epps had 20 points and Micah Peavy 19 for Hoyas, who closed on a 15-4 run to win for just the fifth time in the last 16 games.
“I just feel like we have shown all year that we just don’t quit,” said Peavy, who has an average of 23 points and has gone 22 out of 47 from 3-point intervals in the last nine games.
“Even league matches, we have gone down, and we just continue to fight to the end.”
Georgetown, on its way to a seventh seed in next week’s Big East tournament after a total of four league’s victories during the previous three seasons, has not won competitions in a row since a five-game run from December 14. 3. It has also been outscored with an average margin of 10.2 points during a five-game road slide.
In addition, Hoyas will try to avoid being swept by Depaul (12-18, 3-16), who won 73-68 at Georgetown on January 17 to snap its 39-game Big East regular season’s losing line.
CJ Gunn had 17 points for Blue Demons, who shot 50 percent from the field and held the hosts to 41.5 percent.
In an 80-77 victory Wednesday at Providence, Gunn, on average a team best 12.6 points one game, got 23 points and JJ TRAYNOR added 21. Depaul shot 53.6 percent from the floor and made 10 3 points to finish a six-match skid.
Depaul has not won back-to-back league matches since a winning line with three games from February 24, March 2, 2022.
“Our program was what it was when we took over as staff, but improvements have really been made,” said Blue Demons coach Chris Holtmann, whose team has set a school record with 280 3-points. “It’s really our only focus here.”
Already without a starting point Conor Enright and forward David Skogman, it is uncertain whether the injured Depaul Big Man NJ Benson, who has not played since February 11, will return Saturday.
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