John Thompson III should know that Georgetown's chances of postseason success don't just depend on the health of Chris Wright. (Photo: Associated Press)

At the very end of his postgame press conference, John Thompson III stepped to the microphone, obviously intending to say something that he'd forgotten in the initial give-and-take with the media.

 "Chris [Wright] gets hurt three days ago [against Cincinnati]," Thompson said. "You get two days to get ready for this game ... It's a loss, there's no doubt about that ... I'm not trying to look for something good, but we responded. It's not like we packed it in, and took a 'woe is me' attitude. We fought, we scrapped and we got back in it. We came out on the losing end, but we're going to figure this out."

It was a testament to the pulse-pounding nature of Syracuse's 58-51 win over Georgetown Saturday afternoon that both teams had their moment to seize control of the game and really bury the other team. Syracuse looked to be cruising with 17:28 left in the second half after taking a 37-25 lead on a Rick Jackson dunk. At that moment, it looked like this latest edition of the Big East's most intense rivalry would be a case of Pitt redux for the Hoyas.

Seven minutes and thirty-three seconds of game time later, Jim Boeheim called timeout with most of the Verizon Center roaring their approval of a Nate Lubick putback that gave Georgetown a 45-43 lead. So, yes, Thompson was absolutely right to praise his team for battling back, and had Jackson not sprinted out to the three-point line and gotten a piece of Jason Clark's potential game-tying three-pointer, who knows what further twists and turns the game could have taken?

But in another sense, JTIII's little soliloquy didn't ring quite true. Yes, Chris Wright, who missed the game with a broken bone in his left hand suffered Wednesday night against Cincinnati, is unquestionably the senior leader of a senior-laden team (it spoke volumes that he, and not Austin Freeman, was introduced last during the pregame Senior Day ceremonies). And unlike baseball (a game of individual match-ups disguised as a team sport), the presence of so-called "intangibles" are at least somewhat worthy of discussion and debate in basketball (a team sport cloaked in individual match-ups). But at a certain point, the numbers are what they are. Georgetown's future in the Big East and NCAA Tournaments will ultimately not depend upon the presence or absence of a player who ends his regular season Big East career shooting 39.2 percent (65-for-166) in 16 conference games, a total that includes a less-than-robust 31.9 percent from behind the arc (23-for-72).

No, Georgetown had ample chances to strangle any questions about their effectiveness without Wright in the cradle. But they only made seven of the 25 shots they attempted from three-point range and allowed Syracuse to score 21 points off their 16 turnovers. And that was it. It was really that simple.

Postgame, Boeheim credited his team with playing more active defense, and the Orange were much better at denying the Hoyas' passing lanes and generally making life hell for Wright's fellow senior Julian Vaughn (who only scored three points in 31 minutes). Jackson, in particular, was a force for Syracuse on the interior. Restrained by foul trouble in the first meeting between these teams February 9 at the Carrier Dome, Jackson played all but three minutes Saturday afternoon and was the Orange's leading rebounder (seven) and second-leading scorer (12).

In short, Syracuse possessed all the ingredients necessary to defeat this Georgetown team, Wright or no Wright: zone defense and a strong interior presence. If and when Georgetown comes up against a similar team in the postseason, the shots will have to fall, particularly from outside, in a way that they didn't for the Hoyas Saturday. Whether Chris Wright's broken hand will have healed by that hypothetical match-up won't matter in the slightest.