Villanova’s trip to New York for the Big East tournament was a quick one, as the Wildcats fell to Georgetown 72-71 Thursday afternoon.

Things started well for the ‘Cats. Jermaine Samuels scored the game’s first six points and Villanova jumped out to a 9-0 lead. But in a sign of things to come, Georgetown responded with an 11-0 run to take the lead, setting the stage for a back-and-forth affair.

There was a pleasant surprise at the 17:08 mark when Justin Moore checked into the game just days after Jay Wright said it would be a “near miracle” if Moore could get on the court in New York.

“It was great, it was a shock,” Wright said of Moore’s availability. “We truly prepared not to have him. He didn’t practice yesterday or anything. They just said in warmups today he looked great and they thought he could give it a shot and he did. He did a great job.”

Villanova regained the lead with 11:36 to play in the half. Georgetown would retake a pair of one-point leads over the next few minutes, but ‘Nova was able to take a six-point advantage at the 4:44 mark. After some more jostling between the teams, Georgetown would rip off a 7-0 run to close the half and would take a two-point lead into the break.

Villanova got off to a great start in the second half, outscoring Georgetown 12-2 over the first four minutes to take an eight-point lead. Georgetown would close to within three several times over the next few minutes, but ‘Nova remained in control and took a 10-point advantage at the 10:20 mark. The ‘Cats would bump that lead to 11 with 8:53 to go. Then things went south.

The ‘Nova offense went cold and Georgetown went on a 13-1 run to take a one-point lead with 5:07 to play. The lone ‘Nova point was a Jeremiah Robinson-Earl free throw and the Wildcats would go nearly seven minutes between field goals.

However, Robinson-Earl stopped the run with a pair of free throws with just over three minutes left. Qudus Wahab would answer with his own free throws, but then back-to-back 3-pointers from Cole Swider and Robinson-Earl gave the ‘Cats a five-point lead with just 1:29 to play. Unfortunately, Villanova would be outscored 7-1 over the final 1:29, falling 72-71.

It’s hard to overcome runs of 13-1 and 7-1 within a nine-minute stretch, and Villanova scored just 10 points over the final 8:53 after taking that 11-point lead. Free throws hurt Villanova in a big way. The ‘Cats were just 14-22 from the stripe and missed two front ends of one-and-ones down the stretch. Making matters worse, Georgetown was a perfect 23-23 from the line.

Wright wasn’t particularly worried about the free throw shooting and was instead disappointed in Villanova’s inability to do other things to offset the shooting issues. “Some nights they’re just not gonna go in,” Wright said. “It’s all the other things like committing fouls on drives and giving them offensive rebounds. Those are the things we feel like we can control. Some nights your shots just don’t go.”

“Down the stretch, we didn’t execute as well as we wanted to and we came away with a lot of empty possessions and some of those were missed free throws,” Wright continued. “Some of those were actually good possessions and then we missed free throws. At the other end down the stretch, we weren’t getting stops, we couldn’t get any easy baskets because we didn’t get any stops.”

The ‘Cats also gave up a couple big offensive rebounds down the stretch and sent the Hoyas to the line a few times. “They got a couple big offensive rebounds too,” Wright said. “They did a great job of driving the ball and drawing fouls.”

“They got some O boards, they were doing a good job attacking the goal and they really executed their game plan well,” Jeremiah Robinson-Earl said.

Jermaine Samuels concurred succinctly: “A couple offensive rebounds, a couple fouls,” Samuels said.

Early in the game, Villanova did a great job getting into the paint and scoring. The Wildcats had a 30-14 advantage in points in the paint for the game but had some difficulty keeping that success going late in the game. “When they started pressing, we just didn’t get the ball where we wanted to,” Wright said. “Once they started pressing, we didn’t get the ball inside to Jeremiah and Jermaine like we wanted to, and I thought that made a difference.”

Despite that issue, ‘Nova generally did a good job initiating their sets and executed well on the offensive end. Chris Arcidiacono did a good job running the point and didn’t commit a turnover in 34 minutes of action. The ‘Cats also got some good minutes out of Eric Dixon, something Wright thinks will be helpful. “It’s real important for us to get guys like Chris Arcidiacono, Bryan Antoine, Eric Dixon, those guys minutes in this type of atmosphere,” Wright said. “I hope that can give us some depth in the NCAA tournament.”

It was a disappointing result, especially since it twice looked like Villanova was in control and would be able to get the win. The loss also costs Villanova another opportunity to build momentum without Collin Gillespie and get some more experience for the guys who don’t have a ton of postseason play under their belts yet.

Instead, the ‘Cats will head back to the practice floor and await their seed and bracket for the NCAA tournament.