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Tuesday, February 06, 2001

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

This one was personal. Georgetown's players wanted payback. They were in a nasty mood.

Pitt seemed to be starstruck.

	Isaac Hawkins loses control of the ball as he drives to the basket against Georgetown's Mike Sweetney last night. (Gabor Degre, Post-Gazette)

It didn't seem possible that just two weeks ago Pitt beat Georgetown at the MCI Center to hand the Hoyas their first defeat after 16 victories.

Last night, 15th-ranked Georgetown dominated from beginning to end to defeat Pitt, 81-67, in a Big East mismatch before 6,511 at Fitzgerald Field House.

Georgetown, led by 6-foot-7 Mike Sweetney's 24 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, raised its record to 19-3 overall and 6-3 in the Big East.

"Yeah, we wanted some revenge," said Georgetown guard Kevin Braswell, who had 15 points, 3 assists and 3 steals. "We were upset about [losing to Pitt]. We were 16-0 coming into that game and we didn't think we'd lose to them. We were overconfident."

Pitt lost its second consecutive game to drop to 12-9 and 4-6. Brandin Knight led with 20 points and three steals. He had two assists and five of Pitt's 18 turnovers. Isaac Hawkins also had five turnovers and Donatas Zavackas four.

Knight ran into an accidental elbow in the final moments and still was a bit woozy in the locker room after the game. Pitt Coach Ben Howland called it a "slight concussion."

Sweetney gave the Panthers a huge headache with his solid play underneath.

"We played smarter than the last game," he said. "We wanted this very bad. We were playing good defense the whole 35-second clock."

Georgetown put on a clinic, sniping at Pitt from the outside and overpowering the Panthers on the inside. The Hoyas made 33 of 53 shots from the field (62.3 percent) against a proud defense that entered in the game allowing a league-best 63.7 points per game.

"When you're up 20, it's so much easier to shoot the ball," Greer said. "The basket looks like an ocean."

Greer knew from the opening tip-off this was a different Georgetown team.

"They wanted payback. They came out fired up, physical," he said. "They did the job."

Particularly in the first half.

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"We started off good, and we wanted to go all out on defense," Braswell said. "We didn't want to let [Julius] Page kill us again. He had 18 points at our place. We worked on a lot of things in practice."

Asked if Georgetown made any adjustments, Braswell said, "Just in our intensity. Just in our focus. We wanted to win this game."

The Hoyas led by 20 at halftime and by as many as 25 in the second half before Pitt picked up meaningless baskets at the end to make the final score look more respectable.

The Hoyas gave notice early they were prepared to make sure there wouldn't be a repeat of the game of two weeks ago.

It was obvious that Georgetown had done its scouting homework. The Hoyas forced Page, a 6-3 left-handed freshman, to go right and he managed to get off only three shots in the first half. His only basket was a layup on a backdoor pass from Knight.

Georgetown's defenders played Zavackas tight, refusing to give him the space he needed to launch the kind of long jumpers he nailed against the Hoyas at the MCI Center. Zavackas, a 6-8 sophomore coming off a career-high 22 points in Saturday's 75-67 loss against Notre Dame, didn't attempt a shot from the floor in the first half and had two points.

"They had a great game plan," Howland said. "They scored at will in the first half."

In the first half, Greer, playing through back pain, was ineffective, Toree Morris was overmatched and Hawkins was nearly invisible.

The only Pitt player to show any life in the first half was Knight, who was coming off a scoreless effort against Notre Dame. Knight had 12 points at the break.

But the Panthers didn't have the firepower or the fortitude to stop Georgetown's Sweetney, a freshmen who taught Pitt's big men a lesson in the art of playing the pivot. Twisting, turning and taking it strong, Sweetney had 16 points in the first half on 6-of-7 shooting.

"We have not done a good job of getting Mike the ball all season," Georgetown Coach Craig Esherick said. "I didn't go into the game thinking he would get as many touches as he did. We could have got the ball more to Sweetney in the second half."

There were no outrageous runs by the Hoyas, who systematically built their lead by beating the Panthers down the court for fastbreaks and beating them underneath for power moves. They were in control the entire way, going up, 15-6, after five minutes, 23-11, after 10 minutes and, 36-17, after 15 minutes.

And it just kept getting worse.

Howland kept calling timeouts, but nothing could slow down the Hoyas, a team on a mission.

With 17:39 left, the Hoyas were cruising ahead at 49-24. They maintained a 20-point advantage until Pitt's late surge.

"That is not the way to close a game," Esherick said. "I didn't think revenge was a factor, but some of the players were talking about it."

The Hoyas did more than just talk.

"I'm satisfied," Braswell said, smiling. "I'm very satisfied."

NOTES -- Pitt never led or was tied in the game. ... Both teams had 17 rebounds, but Pitt picked up many of them long after the outcome had been decided. ... Georgetown had 23 assists, 15 turnovers; Pitt had 12 assists, 18 turnovers. ... Pitt didn't block a shot for the first game this season. ... Pitt's next game is Thursday night at West Virginia.