It begins. The real season starts today as THE Ohio State Buckeyes travel to our nation's capital to take on the Georgetown Hoyas. All of the cream puffs are out of the way. Now it gets serious. Ohio State is going to need to be on its game to come away with a victory. Fortunately, I think they're in excellent position to do that. Georgetown is 1-1 thanks to a series of cancelled games, and is fresh off a loss at Notre Dame.
Offense
Georgetown's offense is the Connor brothers. Rory Connor (#11) has 11 goals in 2 games. The transfer from Colgate is basically the only real threat for Ohio State to worry about. That's not nothing. But the entire Hoya offense revolves around him getting the ball.
His brother, Liam Connor (#12), is Georgetown's second highest points scorer, thanks to 6 assists in two games. Liam passes to Rory, Rory scores. There's not a lot else to say. Rory has scored 11 of Georgetown's 21 goals this season. On just 15 shots. I think that's pretty good, if I had to venture a guess.
Defense
Georgetown is bad. They just are. At least early. The Hoyas have allowed opponents to score 9 and 15 goals respectively in their games. Teams are shooting .333 on the year, which is bad. Opponents also are getting 63% of shots on goal. Which is also bad.
Anderson Moore (#0) is sporting a very mediocre .478 save percentage this season, a mark that doesn't help the other struggles. This is a game that should conceivably be pretty run of the mill for the Buckeye offense. Deadly spot shooters on the right and left for the 3 to 4 good dodgers should spell plenty of goals. If the travel doesn't kill the Buckeyes' chances.
Special Teams
Georgetown may be the worst overall team Ohio State has faced in this category. The Hoyas have scored zero Man Up goals. UPenn went 1-2 on Man Up against Georgetown in the Hoyas' opener, which somehow were the only 2 Man Down chances allowed by GU this year. I don't know how it was possible to not commit a penalty last game against Notre Dame, but there you go. The Buckeyes have been stellar on special teams, so if there are penalties, it should favor the Buckeyes.
Faceoff
These two teams are, somewhat hilariously, nearly identical in this arena. At least against teams that are decent. Ohio State struggled to get to just under 50% last week. Georgetown is under 50% on the year, while they split with Notre Dame exactly down the middle. Ohio State has a .667 win percentage through 5 games, but they aren't exactly killing it against teams not in the bottom tier.
I mentioned it last year, in the preview, and in game threads. Faceoff is this team's biggest weakness, and probably is the one area that could/would prevent them from winning an NCAA game. Or reaching the Final Four.
Overall
Georgetown, on the whole, looks okay. They're not a deep team. They're not a team that has a lot of experience right now. Perhaps the most efficient player in the early season in terms of shooting is on the Hoya roster. But the pieces around him are not great. Ohio State has a great opportunity to go 1-0 at the start of the hardest part of their nonconference slate. The next 3 games will go a long way to determining how the end of the season goes.
Ohio State HAS to win against Georgetown and one of Notre Dame/Denver. Anything less puts them on very thin ice, given the state of the Big Ten this season.
I think this game will be close early. But if Ohio State can keep dominating 3rd quarters, a similar result to Notre Dame last week is in the offing. Ohio State has one of the best and deepest offensive units in the country. The defense took a hit after losing Bobby van Buren, but may actually be stronger than last year thanks to an improved SSDM corps.
Is this a cakewalk? No. Is it the most stressful game out there in my eyes? Also no. I think the Buckeyes get it done.
Final Prediction: Ohio State 13, Georgetown 8.
Go Buckeyes!
Game is at noon EST, and on ESPN+ (maybe via Big East subscription?).
