HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel has spent the past few months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with a very special reward coming in March. Even though he has met his quota, he will still cover a few more games to keep from getting rusty. Tuesday night Marquette came to DC for its 26th overall meeting with Georgetown.
No pregame meal at the arena this time: Nando’s Peri Peri courtesy of my favorite season ticket holder (thanks Sam!). Georgetown was nice enough to put me back on the baseline, which gave me a great view of a ranked opponent after seeing a bakery full of cupcakes for 2 straight months:
SR C Jessie Govan was apparently stunned to see me as well:
And away we go:
I saw the nation’s leading scorer Chris Clemons score 45 PTS when Campbell visited DC in November so I was excited to see what Marquette PG Markus Howard (the #4 scorer in the nation at 25.8 PPG) would have in store for us. Fortunately I took a couple of nice photos of him early on:
Unfortunately, he played only 3 minutes before sitting out the rest of the game due to a lower back strain. Had you told me in advance that Georgetown’s Mac McClung would outscore Howard 24-0 I would have told you that Marquette’s 3-game winning streak was going to come to a crashing halt…but that is why they play the games. Howard’s entire team picked up the slack in the 1st half: Sam Hauser scored 10 PTS while making jump shots from all over the floor, his younger brother Joey ran the offense with 4 AST in the 1st 20 minutes, and Theo John did his damage in the paint with a baby hook, layup, and a pair of big dunks:
Georgetown was bolstered by the return of Trey Mourning, who made his return to the court after missing the past 6 games due to a concussion via a dunk of his own. McClung, who missed 4 games of his own during the past month, looked great with 14 PTS via a pair of threes as well as a couple of floaters high off the glass:
Coach Patrick Ewing huddled up with his team to see where he could find some offense since Govan/James Akinjo were underwhelming with a combined 2-8 FG:
The surprising solution: SR Kaleb Johnson, who played big-time off the bench with 10 PTS on a perfect 4-4 FG in only 9 minutes of 1st half action:
Akinjo was never able to find his shooting touch (finishing 1-10 from the field) but Govan got it going in the 2nd half with 10 PTS including 2-2 3PM:
McClung also made a pair of long-range shots in the final 20 minutes to finish with a team-high 24 PTS, but the law firm of Hauser & Hauser saved the day for the Golden Eagles. It is hard to imagine a 6’9” freshman taking charge of the team in the absence of his star teammate with no advance notice, but that is exactly what Joey did: he played every single second of the 2nd half, finishing with 10 PTS/8 REB and tied his career-high with 6 AST. However, big brother Sam was truly golden in the 2nd stanza: 3-6 from behind the arc, a jumper in the lane to cap a 14-0 run and give his team a 57-51 lead, a fadeaway jumper to take a 72-70 lead, and even a pair of FTs with 3 seconds left to set a career-high with 31 PTS and put the finishing touch on a huge 74-71 road win:
In the postgame press conference I asked Coach Ewing if his game plan changed at all after Howard left the game for good. He said that it did not change at all because “our goal is to play our game”:
Then I inquired whether McClung had to do anything different due to Akinjo going cold from the field and Govan getting into foul trouble. He responded that he just “tried to stay aggressive and make shots whenever my teammates get me the ball”:
I did not get a chance to ask Coach Steve Wojciechowski any questions but he was rather hoarse so that was probably for the best:
I ran out of the arena and caught the last subway train home with only a few minutes to spare: all in all it was a good night. Check back in the weeks ahead for our continuing coverage.