• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Georgetown routs Pitt to win Big East tournament

Mar 11, 2007 - 6:55 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Forget the third time. For Georgetown, No. 1 is the charm.

Jeff Green scored 21 points and Roy Hibbert added 18 as the ninth-ranked Hoyas manhandled No. 11 Pittsburgh, 65-42, in the Big East Conference tournament championship game.

Top-seeded Georgetown (26-6) captured its first Big East tournament title since 1989 and its seventh overall, surpassing Connecticut for most conference championships. In each one of those title seasons, the Hoyas have been the tournament's top seed.

"I wanted to win it bad," Green said. "It's something we wanted, to work hard from day one and we wanted to be number one and to win the Big East championship to go along with that.

"From the first game of the season, I've felt that I wanted to be on top of the Big East after it's all said and done. I wanted it bad from the start."

Green became the 12th player to be named Big East Player of the Year and also win the David Gavitt Trophy as the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. He is the sixth player from Georgetown to accomplish the feat.

"I said this after the last game, this is the time of year where good players, good teams play well and there's no doubt that Jeff Green is special with what he can do on the basketball court," Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. "He can do so many things at such a high level and he played extremely well this weekend, there's no doubt about that."

In winning its fourth straight game and 15th in the last 16, Georgetown turned in a dominant performance against the Panthers (27-7), who were making their sixth appearance in the final in seven seasons yet have just one title (2003) to show for it.

The 7-2 Hibbert was immense in the early going, scoring 14 first-half points as the Hoyas stormed to a 32-17 lead at the break.

Hibbert finished 7-of-9 from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, overmatching Pittsburgh 7-footer Aaron Gray, who was 0-for-9 and had one point in the same span.

"He's starting to come on his own if you watched him from a freshman to now, you'll see tremendous strides," Georgetown's Patrick Ewing, Jr. said of Hibbert. "If you watch him from the beginning of this year to now, he's become a great player. I'm glad to be able there and watch him.

"Aaron Gray's a great, great player. He's one of the best in this conference. But Coach told us if you shut down Gray, you shut down them. They rely on him on a lot. But we were trying to force him to use his off hand and make him take tough contested shots. Fortunately it wasn't his night."

The Hoyas used a 13-0 spurt to take a 28-15 lead and the Panthers never got the lead under double digits thereafter.

Green, who was named Big East Player of the Year earlier in the week, scored 14 of his 21 in the second half en route to winning Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament.

The Panthers got as close at 45-32 in the second half, but Jonathan Wallace buried back-to-back 3-pointers to stretch the advantage to 19 points and the rout was on.

Freshman DaJuan Summers and Wallace scored nine points apiece as the Hoyas shot 51 percent (23-of-45) for the game.

"They are well-deserved and played well and deserved to be champions," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "We're obviously disappointed. I thought we would play better and I know our guys feel they could have played - had hoped to play better.

"So they really beat us in every aspect of the game and I can't say enough about how well they played."

Sam Young was the only player in double figures with 10 points for Pitt. Gray, a Wooden Award candidate, was limited to three points on 1-of-13 shooting.

The Panthers' 42 points was the lowest total in history of the championship game, along with their 26 percent (16-of-61) shooting. The combined 107 points between the teams also marked the fewest scored in any title game.