The Georgetown Hoyas were involved in two of the biggest upsets of the 2010-11 season last week at the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands.
First, the No. 12 Hoyas lost to unranked Missouri 54-45 in their second game of the eight-team tournament on Nov. 26, the day after Thanksgiving.
That certainly didn't please Georgetown coach Terri Williams-Flournoy.
"I threatened them pretty good," Williams-Flournoy said in the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel. "We can't choose when we're going to play hard and when we're not going to play hard. We're not that good."
It didn't the Hoyas long to bounce back from that disappointing loss to Mizzou. The next day, Georgetown pulled off an upset of its own, beating No. 4 Tennessee 69-58 in the championship game of the Paradise Jam.
"I'm not sure we would've come out as inspired against Tennessee if it wasn't for the wakeup call against Missouri," Georgetown senior Monica McNutt said in the Georgetown Hoya on Tuesday. "But to beat Tennessee, how many other college programs get to say that?"
Georgetown became the first team since Baylor in last year's regional semifinals in Memphis to beat the Lady Vols. The loss dropped Tennessee to No. 9 in this week's polls.
The Hoyas remain at No. 12. Georgetown is 6-1 and plays a home game against Richmond on Wednesday and travels to Wake Forest on Saturday.
Sophomore Sugar Rodgers is picking up right where she left off from her fabulous freshman season. She's the Hoyas' leading scorer at 16 points per game.
But so far, McNutt has been turning in a strong senior season, averaging 11.7 points per game with a team-high 14 three-pointers. McNutt averaged 15.6 points in three games of the Paradise Jam, including a season-high 24 against Georgia Tech in the opener on Thanksgiving. She scored in double figures in all three games.
The only senior on the Georgetown roster, McNutt is looking to average in double figures in scoring for the second straight year. Last year, she finished second to Rodgers in scoring at 11.2 points per game. The effort earned McNutt second-team all-Big East Conference honors.
McNutt is also setting her sights on helping the Hoyas finish with another solid season. Last year, Georgetown was 26-7 overall, 13-3 in Big East play and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
McNutt is playing with a Georgetown team with six juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen and is predicted to finish third in the Big East.
Big jump: Notre Dame, Iowa and St. John's tied for the biggest jump among the top 25 teams this week. Notre Dame moved from 18th to 16th with a 5-2 record, Iowa jumped from 20th to 18th with a 7-0 mark and St. John's moved from 22nd to 20th at 5-1.
Notre Dame finished 3-0 last week, all of them were in the WBCA Classic. The Fighting Irish beat Butler 85-54 on Sunday to win the WBCA Classic.
Iowa beat James Madison and Virginia Tech in the Caribbean Challenge at Cancun, Mexico last week to remain undefeated. St. John's got a pair of wins over Arkansas State and Nicholls State a week ago.
Welcome aboard, Huskers: Nebraska, which qualified for the Sweet 16 last winter, enters this week's poll at No. 24 after beating Washington State and Nebraska-Omaha last week. A day
after they entered the polls, the Huskers beat UNLV 65-41. Nebraska will take a 6-0 record into
its road game against Indiana on Sunday.
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