It has been a long lonely life of not attending any college basketball games in person over the past 18 months during the pandemic. Thankfully, this weekend HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel was able to break the streak in a big way by attending 3 games (Penn-George Mason, Dartmouth-Georgetown, and Michigan-Prairie View) in 3 arenas (EagleBank Arena, Capital One Arena, and Entertainment & Sports Arena) in a glorious 25-hour span from Friday night to Saturday night. He presents the following photo essay of his return to a sense of normalcy.
Penn-George Mason: After a LONG subway ride from DC to Virginia on Friday my friend Patrick picked me up and we headed to Fairfax to see my Quakers for their 1st trip to the DMV since they beat Howard back in 2019. There were not a lot of fans in attendance so we got to sit up high and be quite socially distant:
It actually seemed like a normal fan experience with the only difference being that everyone was wearing masks. The most interesting part of the game was during the national anthem: most of the Penn players/staff remained seated while Coach Steve Donahue and a couple of others stood. I have not found any news about it online (so perhaps it is a non-issue) but it certainly caught my attention:
The game itself did not go well for the good guys. Penn made 11 threes and actually had more AST than GMU…but the Patriots had a balanced scoring effort with 5 guys who each had 12+ PTS and a great interior defense that only allowed 37.1 FG% inside the arc as they cruised to an 87-66 win. Hopefully my alma mater can get back on track in the weeks ahead before beginning a brutal set of back-to-back games vs. Arkansas & Villanova 2 weeks from today.
Dartmouth-Georgetown: After sleeping off the loss it was back to work on Saturday afternoon with another Ivy League team as the Big Green were in DC to face the Hoyas. My 1st media meal of the season was a Potbelly wreck/jalapeno chips/sugar cookie: hit the spot! Dartmouth’s pregame warmup featured the team wearing “8 Against Hate” t-shirts to showcase the league’s commitment to fighting all forms of hatred:
Georgetown showed its own commitment by performing the Black national anthem while PG Dante Harris and his team stood on the court:
There was big ovation for Preseason Big East ROY Aminu Mohammed when he was introduced as part of the starting lineup. Lights are on, ball is tipped, and away we go!
1 of the other newcomers is 7’2” FR C Ryan Mutombo, son of 7’2” Georgetown legend Dikembe Mutombo, whose last game in a Georgetown uniform was more than 30 years ago when he had 16 PTS/9 REB/3 BLK in an 8-PT loss to an undefeated UNLV squad in the 1991 NCAA tourney (in Tucson!). If you thought there was a chance he would miss his son’s debut 3 decades later…think again:
The good news is that Ryan had a decent debut with his famous father in attendance, scoring 6 PTS in 11 minutes off the bench via a pair of old-fashioned 3-PT plays:
The bad news is that after he committed his 1st foul he got called over to the bench for some…individual instruction by Coach Patrick Ewing:
Apparently the mask policy is for humans only and does not apply to Jack the Bulldog:
…or the other Bulldog for that matter:
A late arrival who sat down right in front of me was former Hoya Rodney Pryor (and his newborn baby!), who finished 4th in the Big East with 18 PPG back in 2017:
Dartmouth opened up a huge lead early and was actually up by 22 PTS late in the 1st half before taking a 37-21 lead into the locker room. As you might expect in a mid-November game it was the seniors taking charge as Brendan Barry/Taurus Samuels each knocked down a pair of threes before halftime (p.s. How long do we have to wait for Ford to do an NIL with a guy named Taurus?!). However, the surprise star was FR SG Ryan Cornish (from Potomac, MD): he looks like he is 14 years old but played like a crafty veteran by making a layup/&1, a pull-up jumper, a pair of threes, and even took a charge against Kaiden Rice, proving once again the power of redheads:
After losing 4 starters from last year (Jahvon Blair/Qudus Wahab/Chudier Bile/Jamorko Pickett) it seemed like there would be no way for Georgetown to close such a large gap with such a young team, but Ewing relied heavily on his incoming freshmen by playing 5 of them (Mohammed/Mutombo/Jordan Riley/Jalin Billingsley/Tyler Beard) as part of his 9-man rotation. Mohammed got to the basket over and over including a dunk to tie it at 48-all, then Riley followed that up with a breakaway dunk to take a 50-48 lead as the crowd roared its approval. The 2 Hoya seniors (Rice/Donald Carey) each made a trio of threes, so it seemed like they had overcome some early obstacles and were ready to finish strong, but Dartmouth simply refused to throw in the towel. The final 10 minutes belonged to their 2 seniors, as Barry had a 4-PT play as part of an 18-3 run to help seal the deal, and Samuels made 4 more threes in the 2nd half to finish with a career-high 23 PTS en route to a 69-60 road upset:
The postgame interview rules do not allow as many media members this year due to social distancing so I went home/took a nap/headed to Game #3…instead of heading into the Caesars By William Hill Sportsbook that last spring became the 1st sportsbook to open inside a pro basketball arena:
Michigan-Prairie View: Continuing the “Against Hate” theme, for those of you wondering what these 2 teams were doing in DC: they were participating in the inaugural “Coaches vs. Racism” event. The purpose is to bring an end to systemic racism in sports by helping Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a couple of ways: highlighting players who are traditionally overlooked by scouts and raising money for college tuition. I had a seriously inauspicious start to the final game of my tripleheader: no media food/drinks, my computer cord was not long enough to reach the nearest power strip in the limited media seating, and there was no electricity at all in the overflow media seating across the court. Fortunately, it was not personal and there were creative solutions available. There was no line at the concession stand for chicken tenders/fries/soda (note to the HoopsHD higher-ups: my expense report is in the mail!) and a nice guy from the IT department installed another power strip right before tip-off so all of my crises were averted. Even though DC is more than 500 miles away from Ann Arbor it appeared that around 95% of the crowd was wearing maize and blue:
You might think that Michigan is becoming a basketball school after last year’s trip to the Elite 8, but the most popular jerseys in the building were of basketball legend…Tom Brady:
Tip-off was 7’1” Hunter Dickinson vs. 6’8” Jerroda Briscoe: care to guess who won it?
The Wolverines dominated from start to finish: with a small gym that was half-full of fans who had little to boo about it was fun to clearly hear Coach Juwan Howard calling out plays from the sideline:
The loudest cheers were reserved for Dickinson, who grew up a short distance away in Alexandria, VA. He had a personal 7-0 run to start the game with a REB/tip-in, a 3 from the top of key, and a dunk. Much like Georgetown, Michigan also lost several starters from last year (Franz Wagner/Mike Smith/Isaiah Livers), but their freshman replacements looked fabulous. Caleb Houstan (3-8 3PM) almost made more threes then the entire Panther team (4-18 3PM), Moussa Diabate did a little of everything (6 PTS/8 REB/1 BLK/1 STL in 15 minutes off the bench), and Kobe Bufkin chipped in with 8 PTS/2 STL of his own. Prairie View trailed 42-23 at halftime: while they played much better in the 2nd half (including an alley-oop dunk by Jawaun Daniels) and finished with 10 STL but it did not make any difference as they ended up losing 77-49. Dickinson finished with a double-double (11 PTS/10 REB in 23 minutes), helping his team enjoy a 52-32 REB advantage, but for the 2nd straight game Michigan was mediocre from the FT line (18-30 vs. Buffalo and 17-32 vs. Prairie View). It has not cost them yet…but you will not win games in March by missing FTs.
The postgame press conference was the most interesting part of the night. 1st of all, instead of the usual practice of having 1 team go 1st and another team go 2nd, the event organizers decided to promote the unifying theme of the event by having 2 players from each team sitting at the same table:
The Wolverines are a big draw so it was a bit of a tight squeeze with a bunch of people in a tiny room, but at least everyone from the media was masked up. I got to ask Dickinson about his homecoming: he said that he had a lot of family/friends in attendance, was excited but not nervous, and that it was fun to be back in the area:
After the players finished it was time for the combo coach conference:
Since I was at an event called “Coaches vs. Racism” that was taking place just 48 hours after Seattle head coach Jim Hayford resigning for allegedly using the N-word, I was curious to get each coach’s reaction was to the recent news. Coach Howard was unaware of the incident so he was stunned when I broke the news to him and called it “heartbreaking”:
Prairie View coach Byron Smith actually faced Hayford when their 2 teams played back in 2018. He called it a “tragedy” because basketball is a unique sport that breaks down all racial barriers. He said that sometimes coaches can go too far in an attempt to make a point and that there is no place in our world for that type of language:
That is a wrap from my exciting 25 hours in DC, but check back next weekend as HoopsHD will be LIVE at the Roman Main Event to see the Wolverines yet again when they headline a 4-team field that includes Arizona/UNLV/Wichita State.