HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with a very special reward coming in March. 3 down, 5 to go:
Part 1: Central Connecticut State (https://hoopshd.com/2018/11/11/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-1)
Part 2: Richmond (https://hoopshd.com/2018/11/30/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-2)
Part 3: Liberty (https://hoopshd.com/2018/12/04/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-3)
Part 4 was earlier today when SMU visited DC for the schools’ 2nd meeting all-time.
I was going to do a regular article about a regular game but there were so many things going on today that did not make any sense so instead I decided to list every single 1 of them.
The pregame media room meal has been lunch-centric all season but this morning it featured an egg sandwich on a croissant, breakfast potatoes, and even a chocolate chip muffin for dessert: I am certainly not complaining but it should have served as my 1st clue of the weirdness that lay ahead. There is often a lot of grey clothing in the stands but when a Catholic university hosts a basketball game in mid-December they hand out dark blue holiday-themed t-shirts for the home fans:
Instead of the usual uniforms in white or grey we saw some pretty teal numbers for the home team (modeled here by FR PG James Akinjo):
Jamorko Pickett had 2 double-scoring figure games to start the season and started 8 of Georgetown’s 9 games this year but instead of a teal jersey he was wearing a dark suit and spent all 40 minutes on the bench due to his “coach’s decision”:
Similar to Pickett, SMU’s Nat Dixon scored in double-digits in his season opener and started each of his team’s 1st 8 games, then got demoted to the bench in December and scored exactly 0 PTS in a loss to TCU last week. So what does he do: subs in off the bench and proceeds to make a trio of threes and a runner for 11 PTS in 11 minutes in the 1st half:
Georgetown is not much of a shot-blocking team (0 in the 1st half) yet they were whistled for goaltending on 2 separate shot attempts. Jessie Govan entered the game shooting 58.3 FG%…so naturally he had an underwhelming 3-9 shooting performance in the 1st half (yet was still the Hoyas’ best all-around player with 7 PTS/7 REB):
Akinjo made a pair of nifty layups and has played smart all season but despite committing only 2 fouls combined in his past 2 games he got a talking-to from Coach Patrick Ewing after fouling SR PG Jahmal McMurray on a 3-PT attempt:
Georgetown has held the halftime lead in every single game this year, so of course they trailed 39-34 after 20 minutes. The 2nd half was a battle of the PGs but seniority won out. Akinjo (who turned 18 last month) kept getting to the FT line and making SMU pay when he did (8-8) but McMurray (who will turn 23 next month) made 3 shots from behind the arc and finished the half with 13 PTS/0 turnovers. McMurray kept making clutch shot after clutch shot: he made a pullup 3 to give the Mustangs their 1st double-digit lead of the game at 44-34, then made his final basket of the game on a layup in the final 2 minutes to give his team a 76-71 lead after the Hoyas had cut the margin to 3 PTS. His teammate Ethan Chargois chipped in with 17 PTS and tied a career-high with 3 STL…which is not what I expected after his 4-PT/0-STL performance against TCU last week. The final head-scratcher for Georgetown came in the final 90 seconds: after rebounding a missed 3 by Jarrey Foster and having 3 freshmen on the court (Akinjo/Josh LeBlanc/Mac McClung) I expected Coach Ewing to call a timeout to draw up a play and make it a 1-possession game:
Instead he let them play it out, Govan turned the ball over after getting double-teamed, and SMU made 5 FTs in the final minute to clinch an 81-73 win.
The Hoyas’ season-long trends coming into the game left me even more confused after reviewing the final stats: they had been 6-1 when outrebounding their opponent…strike 1. They were 5-0 when shooting more FTs than their opponent…strike 2. They had been 5-0 at home…strike 3.
Bizarro Day even continued into the postgame press conferences. SMU came out 1st but did not bring McMurray and his game-high 19 PTS. I asked Chargois what had changed from his underwhelming effort against the Horned Frogs: he said that there was no big difference and that “I just made the shots that I had tonight”:
Coach Tim Jankovich also chimed in on that topic a few questions later by stating that Chargois had a season-low 6 FG attempts against TCU and that “the ball just did not come to Ethan that much”:
Georgetown did not send a single player to the press conference but I invited Coach Ewing to explain why McClung had become so aggressive on driving to the hoop the past 4 games (23 FT attempts) after not going to the FT line a single time during the 1st 6 games of the year. He responded that Mac “is an attacking-type player and will start getting calls”:
That’s all for now, check back in the weeks ahead for Part 5.