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 1-6 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
https://hoopshd.com/2019/12/15/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-3
https://hoopshd.com/2019/12/20/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-4
https://hoopshd.com/2019/12/29/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-5
https://hoopshd.com/2020/01/09/still-hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-6
He continues his series with Part 7 featuring the Hoyas’ matchup on Wednesday night against St. John’s:
Solid pregame meal of make your own tacos/chocolate chip cookies. On an unrelated note, this could be the most respectful mascot that I have ever seen:
Let’s tip things off:
Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing seemed to be in a very good mood despite starting conference play with a 1-3 record that included 3 double-digit losses:
Creighton arrived in DC with a ranking as the 25th-best team in the nation. There is no big surprise to their success: they shoot 36% from behind the arc and are 12-0 this year when making at least 8 threes/game. They appeared well on their way in the 1st half as PG Marcus Zegarowski/wing Denzel Mahoney combined to make 5-8 long-range shots while their opponents only made 3-9:
As usual the Hoya hero was SR C Omer Yurtseven…once he fixed his luxurious hair:
He made several shots from his favorite spot (the baseline), had a follow-dunk after rebounding 1 of his teammate’s misses, and even had a STL that led to a Terrell Allen layup. His 10 PTS in the 1st half kept his team in it as they only trailed 37-36 at halftime. Ewing and Creighton coach Greg McDermott both knew that they would be in for a dogfight in the 2nd half:
Mac McClung had a rough 1st half with 4 TO and then picked up his 3rd foul just 40 seconds into the 2nd half but Coach Ewing decided to leave him in. His faith was rewarded in an unusual fashion: McClung has done the majority of his damage this year via 3s/layups and getting to the FT line, but he made several jump shots and a baseline runner to lead his team with 12 2nd half PTS:
Zegarowski kept pouring it on with 3 more threes in the 2nd half including 1 off of a turnover when an outlet pass bounced off the back of Jamorko Pickett’s head to tie his career-high with 6 makes from behind the line (in addition to 3 STL on the other end of the court):
JR G Jahvon Blair had every single 1 of his team’s 12 bench PTS but returned to the bench at the under-12 timeout holding his hand in pain:
Bluejay JR G Ty-Shon Alexander made some nice layups inside and 2 consecutive long jumpers to cut the Hoyas’ lead to 70-66:
…then his fellow JR G Mitch Ballock (who went scoreless in the 1st half) knocked down back-to-back 3s in the final 4 minutes to cut it to 74-72:
Ewing huddled the troops while trying to figure out how to get a Tier 1 win on his resume:
SR G Jagan Mosely did not make a single FG attempt in the 1st half but knocked down 4-5 in the 2nd stanza including a huge dunk, a layup high off the glass, a 3, and a runner:
Yurtseven remained unstoppable, working the baseline for jumpers and working the boards for the hell of it to finish with 20 PTS/13 REB/2 BLK:
The end of the game resembled a scene from a horror movie: there was an officials’ timeout with 19.8 seconds left so that some blood could be removed from the floor, then I heard a commotion down the row from me where Allen was lying on the ground and holding a towel to his face due to a severe case of nausea before being escorted to the locker room:
The Hoyas hung on to win 83-80, which improved their record to 12-6 on the season and placed them squarely within the bubble…for now. Coach McDermott was not in a great mood at the postgame press conference so when silence descended on the media after a couple of questions I figured that I would ask him how he enjoyed his team’s Tuesday tour of the White House. His 4-word response summed it up: “better than the game”.
I tried to get a word in edgewise with Coach Ewing but there were so many other folks in the room that we simply ran out of time:
That’s all for now, check back in the weeks ahead for Part 8.