A pep talk from the Wise Old Head helped motivate Georgetown to its biggest victory of the season.
Upset about a slump that had seen the Hoyas lose four of their previous five games, captain Ya Ya Dia issued a challenge to his teammates before Monday night's game against 14th-ranked Villanova."I was just telling them that it's in the middle of a time like this that a man finds out who he is," said the Senegal-born forward, who got his nickname through his steady leadership of a team filled with freshmen and sophomores.
"And I told them that tonight we'll find out a lot about the character of this team, and we definitely did. This team's got a lot of heart."
After Dia's mini-sermon, the Hoyas went out and did three things they haven't done in weeks: They jumped to an early lead, made a decent percentage of their free throws and didn't get psyched out when the other team made a big run.
The result: A 78-67 upset that kept alive the Hoyas' tenuous hopes for an NCAA tournament bid.
"We came out, and most of the time we weren't mentally ready to play," Dia, the only senior on the roster who gets significant playing time, said of the Hoyas' recent games "It wasn't very aggressive, and that's not Georgetown basketball. It just seems like today we played Georgetown basketball."
Georgetown (12-7, 5-6 Big East) made five of its first six shots to jump to an 11-2 lead, and didn't fold when Villanova ate up all but four points of 21-point second-half lead.