I think this was earlier than the freeze. It was certainly earlier than any awareness of a freezing job market made it onto HN; the email from the recruiter promising to give me good news on a phone call tomorrow -- a rare example of a Google recruiter putting something in writing -- arrived on January 12 of last year. There was a very long lag between that call, described in my earlier comment and presumably taking place on Jan 13, and the followup telling me I'd been rejected on March 2. I undersold that by describing it as "a couple weeks".

On the other hand, according to my memory I was informed that I should see a job offer by the end of February - I noted at the time (to myself) that the schedule was surprisingly long - and in the light of your comment, that and the timing of my eventual rejection do tend to support the idea that the hiring committee's next scheduled meeting was at the end of February.