HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with a very special reward coming in March. He begins the series with the Hoyas’ matchup earlier today against Central Arkansas:
The morning got off to a slow start after I found myself stuck in line behind the Hoya Band as we all tried to enter the arena at the same time but eventually a nice security officer let myself and some of the other media folks cut the line. The pregame media room meals last season were above-average but today’s was a little underwhelming: half of a lukewarm egg and cheese bagel, some tasty potatoes, decent pasta salad, and some pastries to satisfy my sweet tooth. While standing in the food line I got to meet play-by-play man Scott Graham, a fellow Penn alum who used to work with my college roommate Andrew when they both covered Quaker games on the radio. The crowd was a little sparse on an unseasonably cold afternoon during a holiday weekend in November:
2 of the storylines that I was keeping an eye on were Central Arkansas becoming the 2nd team in the country to play 3 games this week (trailing only DePaul) and Georgetown 7-footer Omer Yurtseven’s 1st college game vs. a fellow 7-footer since his ACC regular season finale on 3/3/18 during his NC State days (when 1 of his Louisville opponents was Anas Mahmoud):
The best athlete sighting of the day was Jerome Williams who was sitting in the front row with his wife/3 kids. The “Junk Yard Dog” is a hometown kid who made it big: born in DC, high school in the Maryland suburbs, college at Georgetown, followed by a 10-year NBA career with the Pistons/Raptors/Bulls/Knicks. Foreshadowing: both Jerome and his cell phone will make another appearance in our story toward the very end:
A quick pregame huddle and away we go:
The Bears only won 14 games last year with a very young squad and even though they are a year older they still only have 1 senior on the roster in Aaron Weidenaar. Their defensive rebounding needs a little work: they allowed 4 straight offensive REB on the very 1st possession of the game while Coach Russ Pennell screamed his displeasure from the sideline. After surviving that initial obstacle they had a great balanced scoring effort in the 1st half: SO Eddy Kayouloud made a few layups, JR DeAndre Jones drained back-to-back 3s, and JR 7-footer Hayden Koval (who often hung out on the perimeter) matched his PG Jones with 2 long-range shots of his own:
The instant offense off the bench was provided by FR Jaxson Baker with 3 quick makes from behind the arc: it was easy for me to cheer for him as we both went to the same high school in Phoenix (although I was a couple of decades ahead of him!). Unfortunately, it was not enough because Georgetown scored 54 in the 1st half thanks to some outside shooting by Jamorko Pickett/Jagan Mosely and a dominant effort by Yurtseven inside. The big man made put-back after dunk after hook shot and recorded a double-double after only 10 minutes of on-court action to help his team to a double-digit halftime lead:
Even at a college basketball game you could see that the city is still enjoying its post-World Series hangover:
Sadly, the t-shirt gun was not firing out Nats’ t-shirts into the crowd:
Despite the fact that Koval and Yurtseven are both 7’ tall they possess vastly different skill sets. The former continued to make shots from behind the arc (4-5 on the day) and finished with 21 PTS/4 REB in almost 39 minutes, while the latter continued to do damage near the basket and finished with 1 of the most efficient stat lines you will ever see (17 PTS/15 REB in under 20 minutes!). The Hoyas’ 3-PT shooting turned ice-cold in the 2nd half (2-11), which led to Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing telling his team to try something else:
Fortunately it was not an issue due to his team’s all-around offensive effort. While Yurtseven was certainly the star it was not just a 1-man show: each of his other 10 teammates who stepped onto the court scored 4+ PTS. The Mr. Perfection Award goes to Mosely: in addition to taking multiple charges he made all 3 of his shots from 1-PT land, both of his shots from 2-PT land, and both of his shots from 3-PT land en route to a 13-PT night for the dependable senior:
Georgetown was outscored after halftime but still cruised to an 89-78 win thanks to a whopping 38 bench PTS. In the postgame press conference I tried to ask Coach Pennell how he felt about his school record for career AST on the brink of being broken by his PG: before I even finished he interrupted me to say that Jones was going to be benched for the rest of the season!
After I laughed out loud (it was funny!), he gave Jones his props for having a fantastic career despite just starting his JR year this week. He also said that Jones got kicked in the calf during the game (which is why he only played 17 minutes) but hopes that he can return for their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Tuesday because he is “the straw that stirs the drink”:
After Coach Ewing sat down at the podium I inquired whether Yurtseven had already exceeded his own expectations only 2 games into the season. Ewing smiled and admitted that he expects great things from his SR C:
He praised his size/athleticism/ability but frankly stated that “his effort needs to be a lot better”. My seat on the baseline gave me a perfect view of the 7’ player giving his undivided attention to his 7’ coach during 1 of their TV timeouts:
The best part of the press conference was when Williams crashed it and sat in the front row: not due to his shiny new Georgetown backpack, but rather the moment when his cell phone started going off…with a ring-tone that made the sound of a barking dog!:
That’s all for now, check back in the weeks ahead for Part 2.