A little Hoya hope

Good morning! Hope you snuck in some college hoops on Monday before locking into football last night.

Let's get to Monday’s news.

1. Hoyas pull off rare win at Villanova

Ed Cooley’s rebuild hit a speed bump the last few weeks when Georgetown lost four in a row. And that was before Monday’s game at Villanova — where it hadn’t won since 2011.

Yet the Hoyas somehow avoided another loss thanks to a 9-0 run to close out a 64-63 win on Micah Peavy’s game-winner.

Peavy was terrific with a team-high 24 points, including six 3-pointers. He had support from Thomas Sorber — check this absurd assist from the freshman big man — who added 15 points, 11 rebounds and 4 dimes, aad Jayden Epps (15 points off the bench). Getting Sorber back on court (he missed Friday’s loss to DePaul) was huge.

It all added up to a big sigh of relief for the Hoyas (13-6, 4-4 in Big East), who are tied for sixth with Xavier.

“We’ve gone through some ups and downs. That’s the rigors of the Big East,” Cooley said. “Today was a resilient win. Today was a culture win.”

Did it help that Villanova (12-8, 5-4) played most of the game without Wooga Poplar, who was ejected in the first half? Sure. But it still had the nation’s leading scorer playing as expected. Eric Dixon led all scorers with 29 points and had a chance for a game-winner after catching a full-court pass, but his jumper just missed.

It mostly means that Villanova’s now lost three of four games since beating UConn on Jan. 8, including back-to-back losses where they had leads late in the game.

“We just didn’t get stops when we needed to,” Nova coach Kyle Neptune said. “At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to.”

2. Penn State avoids collapse vs. Rutgers + more results

For a few minutes, it seemed like Rutgers was about to steal another road win. But Penn State kept its cool. Ace Bailey didn’t.

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