HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. Part 5 was published earlier this month:
https://hoopshd.com/2022/01/14/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-5-2
He continues his series with Part 6 featuring the Hoyas’ matchup yesterday against Villanova:
It was a cold morning in DC both outside and inside, as the pregame meal of French toast/scrambled eggs/sausage/biscuit was tasty…but a little cold. FS1 analyst/College Basketball Hall of Famer Jim Jackson must think I am stalking him all over DC as he and I were both at Howard for the MLK Classic game vs. Notre Dame last Monday:
I usually get stuck sitting up in a corner for games featuring big-time opponents like Villanova so I was thrilled to learn that I would be in my usual spot behind the basket!
It was a “Gray-Out” game with free t-shirts for the fans so the lower level was pretty full:
Let’s tip it off:
It is always fun to see a pair of Hall of Famers on the sideline in Patrick Ewing/Jay Wright…although it is still weird to see the latter not wearing a suit:
Apparently, Villanova was still in mourning after blowing a 9-PT 2nd half lead at home to Marquette last Wednesday so they broke out the black uniforms for this 1:
It was a homecoming of sorts for Wildcat G Justin Moore, who grew up less than 20 miles south of Capital 1 Arena in Ft. Washington, MD. He showed out for his hometown fans with a 3 and a bunch of layups in the 1st half:
I assumed that Georgetown was going to get blown out but Coach Ewing had his team play a lot of full-court press to start, which gave the Wildcats fits:
After only playing 22 minutes before fouling out in a win over Howard last month, Hoya FR Aminu Mohammed’s workload has increased significantly as he has played 33+ minutes in every game since then. I fear that exhaustion might eventually take its toll but he was very active in the 1st 20 minutes with several layups:
Dante Harris was 0-2 from behind the arc in a loss at Providence on Thursday but his pink shoes seemed to be working just fine in DC as he made a pair of threes early:
His teammate Donald Carey missed 3 games earlier this month but made a season-high 5 shots from behind the arc vs. the Friars. His shot was not falling that much on Saturday (1-6 3PM) so he became more of a distributor with a season-high 7 AST and helped his team build a 40-37 lead at halftime:
Georgetown SO Collin Holloway took over in the 2nd half, making a hook in the lane and a 3 to give his team its largest lead of the day at 47-39. He kept making a ton of layups in the 2nd half en route to a career-high 25 PTS/9-10 FG:
Moore continued to get into the lane in the 2nd half for several more layups, as did his teammate Jermaine Samuels who finished with 18 PTS/3 STL:
Amazingly, with 11 minutes left the Wildcats only had 3 total AST, which seemed impossible, but that was primarily a result of SR PG Collin Gillespie taking matters into his own hands. Instead of distributing the ball to his teammates, he turned into a scorer and ended up with 28 PTS/6-9 3PM. After making 41 threes in 20 games last year, he now has 62 in his 1st 19 games this year, which is 10th-most in the nation:
Even though it was not a 1-possession game (Villanova won by a final of 85-74), the free throw shooting for both teams was a sight to behold as they combined to make 32-33 from the charity stripe. That is a wrap for the Hoyas’ final home game of January, but check back in February when Georgetown hosts 3 Big East opponents during the 1st 6 days of the month.