HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with a very special reward coming in March. You can find Parts 1&2 at:
https://hoopshd.com/2019/11/09/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-1
https://hoopshd.com/2019/11/20/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-2
He continues his series with Part 3 featuring the Hoyas’ matchup yesterday against Syracuse:
The best way to follow up an annual checkup with the doctor on Friday…is a pregame meal on Saturday catered by Rockland’s BBQ: chicken/pork/beans/mac and cheese (there might have been a 2nd helping)! 1 look at the media seating chart made me realize that this must be a big game because they pushed me off the baseline and into the corner:
I also bumped into Evan Chvotkin, son of Georgetown radio legend Rich and a Network Engineer for Monumental Sports & Entertainment. I met him last month when we were both at the Wooden Legacy in Anaheim: if you ever have a computer issue then he is the guy to talk to. Unlike my 1st 2 Hoya games last month against Central Arkansas/Georgia State, this 1 features a LOT of students/orange in the house. It is nice to see a big crowd show up for a nationally televised game with Gus Johnson on the mike for Fox:
Let’s tip things off:
It is always fun to see Jim Boeheim and Patrick Ewing face each other as coaches after they squared off in the old Big East as coach vs. player for these same teams almost 40 years ago:
Georgetown G Jagan Mosely entered the game shooting better than 58% from behind the arc. After nailing all 3 of his long-range attempts he was up to 67%, which placed him among the best 3-PT shooters in the nation. Syracuse F Elijah Hughes played all 20 minutes in the 1st half and kept his team in the hunt with 18 PTS/7-11 FG, equaling Mosely with a trio of his own trifectas as well as many mid-range jump shots:
His fellow frontcourt player Marek Dolezaj dominated the paint with 5-6 FG thanks to layup after layup but it was the defensive end of the court where he was involved in a game-changing play. His team was trailing 27-23 when Dolezaj was whistled for a blocking foul with about 8 minutes left after getting bowled over by Mac McClung. The Orange bench then got hit with a technical foul, McClung made 3 straight FTs, and after draining a 3 at the halftime buzzer McClung had given his team a 48-36 lead as the crowd erupted. The reigning Big East Player of the Week is so hot at the moment that even when I tried to take a pregame photo of him it almost burnt a hole in my lens:
During halftime I wandered downstairs and ran into my fellow Penn alum Peter Biche: I tried to get an injury update on John Wall out of him…but you do not become the CFO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment by spreading gossip! Andy Katz is today’s sideline reporter for Fox, as well as a college friend of my brother-in-law, so it was nice to see him again after bumping into him last March at the Sweet 16 in DC:
With all due respect to the elder Boeheim the star of the 2nd half was his son. After scoring a career-high 26 PTS in a win at Georgia Tech the previous weekend, Buddy went ice-cold in the 1st half by missing all 5 of his shots. He would foul out with 28 seconds left vs. the Hoyas but not before making a ridiculous 7-10 3PM en route to a 25-PT 2nd half: it was 1 of the most remarkable performances that I have ever seen in person.
Georgetown 7-footer Omer Yurtseven also had a bad 1st half with 3 PTS/4 TO but similarly flipped the switch in the 2nd stanza with a bunch of jumpers/dunks to finish the game with a near-double-double of 19 PTS/9 REB:
Usually the best sighting I have in the crowd is a former Georgetown player returning to DC to watch his alma mater. However, we had some baseball royalty yesterday as Max Scherzer was sitting courtside with his wife: when the PA announcer mentioned that the World Series champ was present he got a HUGE ovation from the crowd. I expected the Scherzers to leave a little early but they stayed until the very end, which thankfully allowed me to get a photo of the happy couple late in the 2nd half:
The Hoyas had a 16-5 advantage in 2nd chance PTS thanks in large part to a 41-29 REB advantage but the biggest key to their 89-79 win was at the FT line. Syracuse only had 9 FT attempts while Georgetown had not 1 but TWO different players with double-digit FTA of their own: Terrell Allen (11 FTA vs. the Orange after only attempting 11 total in his 1st 9 games this year) and McClung (who made 9-10 to push his season average to 92.7 FT%, which puts him in great company with some of the best FT shooters in NCAA history such as JJ Redick/Jerome Randle/all-time record-holder Blake Ahearn):
It was obvious that this win meant a lot to Coach Ewing after having 4 players leave the team during the past few weeks. He ran off the court while high-fiving everyone in sight:
At the postgame press conference I asked Coach Boeheim where his son’s dual 20-minute performances ranked in family history. He agreed that Buddy’s 1st half 0-for-5 ranked at the bottom and stated that his 2nd half effort was ALMOST as good as 1 of his own…”but not quite!”:
I inquired whether Coach Ewing felt that the fans were crucial to his team’s success. He stated that his team needs the Hoya faithful to come out and give their vocal support. He gave props to the great crowd they had in NYC last month for the 2K Empire Classic at MSG and hoped that they kept showing up in DC because his team really feeds off of their energy:
That’s all for now, check back in the weeks ahead for Part 4.