So twice wasn’t enough for these masochists from DC. After putting to bed whatever faint tournament hopes the USF Dominique Joneses Bulls had, the stage is set for the season’s third installment of SU-Georgetown. The last meeting between the two rivals in Madison Square Garden was four years ago, when Gerry McNamara put on one of the top clutch performances in college basketball history.

By now, you know the story of how the first two games of the campaign between the ‘Cuse and the Hoyas went. In Part I, Georgetown raced out to a 14-0 lead before SU snuffed it out and won convincingly at the Carrier Dome. In Part II at the Verizon Center, it was SU who got out to a big lead. The Orange came very close to blowing a 23-point lead, but held on late.

They say it’s tough to beat a team three times in one season, but with the Hoyas having just played Wednesday, I have a hard time heeding that advice. Maybe it’s a law of sample sizes, maybe it’s the fact that Syracuse is clearly better, but it’s tough to see Georgetown upending the outright champion of the conference in its third attempt.

That’s not to say that the third time can’t be the charm, because it very well could be. It’s the Big East in March – crazy things happen:

A player puts a team on his shoulders for four straight games to carry them into the Big Dance.
Games go six overtimes.
Gritty Belgians fall on their heads.
Providence wins.

And I haven’t even gotten into how schizophrenic Georgetown has been this year. They’ve beaten Duke, beaten Villanova on the road, won at Peterson Events Center, but have lost to Old Dominion, South Florida and Rutgers. You just don’t know which team is going to show up.

It’ll be an entertaining game for sure, and Syracuse has a chip in its shoulder as they look for some closure following Sunday’s free-fall at Freedom Hall and put a clamp on their #1 seed. I feel pretty good about saying Syracuse by 12.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm by Brian G. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.