Villanova vs Georgetown Odds, Pick for Friday

Years and years ago, a game between the Villanova Wildcats and Georgetown Hoyas on a Friday night would be a marquee matchup, especially when it's the only Big East or even power conference game on the slate.

This season, that's not the case. Georgetown has stepped into the Ed Cooley era, though finds itself very much amidst a rebuild. The Hoyas have lost nine straight games and have yet to defeat a Big East team other than DePaul. Villanova, meanwhile, had high hopes for this season, landing in the preseason AP Poll.

Slowly but surely, hope for these Wildcats has dwindled. Villanova has won juts three of its last 10 outings and finds itself a healthy distance away from the NCAA tournament bubble.

Villanova's issues come at the offensive end of the floor, where the Wildcats feel bogged down without answers. That's surprising given the talent on this roster, much of it mined this summer in the transfer portal.

It's a reductive exercise, but if you simply took Villanova's nine top scorers from this season and add up their points per game averages from last season (four of which came at other schools), it totals over 90. These Wildcats, however, only score 72.5 points per game and rank in the bottom half of the Big East in offensive efficiency.

A lot of those issues stem from shot selection and offensive philosophy. Villanova ranks 16th in the nation in 3-point rate, while shooting the 201st-best percentage from long range.

The Wildcats settle for jump shots, often from the wrong shooters. Justin Moore, Mark Armstrong and Jordan Longino have combined for over 200 attempts from deep, making those looks at under a 30% clip. The team really only has one elite shooter, Brendan Hausen, who plays under 17 minutes per game.

Yet it's not as simple as, "Villanova wins when it makes those 3s and disappoints when it doesn't." These Wildcats beat North Carolina while shooting 5-of-22 from deep, but lost to Marquette (by 13 points) on a night when they made 43% from outside. The raw 3-point percentage only tells so much of the story.

The shot selection, especially within the context and flow of the game, is where real problems have occurred. EvanMiya's Kill Shot stat, which counts 10-0 runs created and conceded by a team, shows this. Villanova is 31st in creating those runs, but is far more susceptible to allowing them.

The Wildcats allow Kill Shots at the 48th-highest rate in the country; no other top-50 team in the nation ranks in the top 100 of that stat.

Villanova's offense runs out of answers time and time again. Sometimes it leads to slow starts, other times slow finishes or long droughts mid-game.

Cooley took over a Georgetown program that was 2-38 in its last two seasons of Big East play. No one expected a quick turnaround.

Cooley's rebuild plan, however, did look to take a shortcut. He hit the transfer portal hard, finding five major contributors to this season's team on the "open market."

Those five players brought 14 seasons of Division I experience with them. This rebuild would not be tossed onto the backs of freshmen trying to learn on the go. In some respects, Georgetown should have been able to tread water in the Big East to some extent this season.

Losing every game in conference except a narrow home win over DePaul would not qualify as treading water. Cooley should be thankful DePaul is such a mess, otherwise Georgetown would be dead last in the Big East standings and most of its statistical categories.

The Hoyas are allowing 122.4 points per 100 possessions in Big East play, several standard deviations behind any of the competitive teams in the conference (though of course, somehow DePaul is even worse).

If there's a bright spot, it's Illinois transfer Jayden Epps, who should be honored on one of the All-Big East teams. He has been excellent on the offensive end, with little help around him. Of his 68 2-pointers this season, just 13 came via an assist. Cooley's No. 1 job this summer is keeping Epps in DC.

Georgetown really has not even been close to stealing wins in the Big East, aside from a buzzer-beating defeat at Xavier. Seven of the Hoyas' 12 conference losses came by 13 or more points. Even playing at home hasn't helped much. Georgetown is just 2-5 as a home 'dog this season.

Still, I think there's reason to think they can hang around for a bit in this one. Villanova is so prone to droughts and lapses that a sleepy Friday night road game, even in a must-win scenario, is a scary proposition. On top of that, Georgetown is due for some shooting luck, having made 29.5% from deep in its last four, compared to 43.4% from the Hoyas' opponents.

If Villanova at least starts cold, the Hoyas can hover around the lead until the locker room.

Pick: Georgetown 1H