Hanging with the Hoyas: Part 2

HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. You can find Part 1 at:
https://hoopshd.com/2022/11/12/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-1-2
See below for his photo essay about the Hoyas’ matchup earlier today against South Carolina.

I entered the arena quite hungry and was thrilled to find a delicious pregame meal catered by Einstein Bros. Bagels: egg sandwich/ham & cheese sandwich/chocolate chip cookie/chocolate chip muffin! Everyone in the media room got very excited while watching the US soccer team score to make it a 2-1 game…then got substantially less excited when the Netherlands made it 3-1 just 5 minutes later: klootzak! I know that Georgetown and South Carolina are not exactly NCAA tourney teams but I was still hoping for a decent crowd considering it was a matchup of major conference teams: not so much. Let’s tip it off:


I do not usually care about the opposing team but I was really looking forward to seeing South Carolina star GG Jackson. I do not get to see that many McDonald’s All-Americans in person, much less a super-frosh who is projected to be a lottery pick next June…but after he started 0-5 from the field while going scoreless in the 1st half I wondered what all the hype was about: stay tuned! Fortunately, he had some upperclassmen 3-PT shooters around him in the form of SR Hayden Brown (left: who came into the game shooting 4-21 from behind the arc this year but made a 3 from the corner and another from the top of the key) and JR Meechie Johnson (right: who made a couple of long-range shots in the 1st half…but saved his best for last):


Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing was unhappy with his team’s defense so he switched from a man-to-man to a zone late in the half and it seemed to pay immediate dividends:


The Hoyas transition offense gave them a huge boost in terms of PTS off of turnovers: they had a 23-0 advantage in that category late into the game. The player who you would expect to excel in transition was G Primo Spears, who made a couple of jumpers and was also able to get into the lane for a floater and a tough lefty layup:


The player I did not expect to do anything (but who proved me wrong) was PF Bradley Ezewiro. He had only scored 7 PTS all year but set a career-high with 6 PTS in just 3 minutes of action on a scoop/put-back/layup:


The Hoyas’ lead at halftime (37-26) was their largest of the afternoon and it looked like they might have finally figured things out…and then the 2nd half turned into the GG Jackson Show. The freshman made layup after jumper after 3 after scoop after &1 after dunk after tip-in to tie his career-high with 22 PTS. Georgetown tried a variety of defenses against him and when Ewing assigned a guard to defend him GG would be BEGGING for the ball down low while posting up his smaller opponent. Not a single opposing player had scored 22+ PTS vs. the Hoyas all year (Justin Steers of Coppin State had 21 in the season opener) but Jackson had 22 IN THE 2ND HALF! He may not have been perfect…but he looked a lot like a lottery pick:


Georgetown SG Jay Heath missed the 1st 2 games of the year while awaiting a decision on his eligibility after transferring from ASU, and since getting the good news he has looked pretty good. He scored 25 PTS in a win over UMBC last Saturday and added another 23 PTS this Saturday on a trio of trifectas and a perfect day from the FT line (6-6):


The game went right down to the wire and the final 30 seconds were quite intense. Johnson missed the front end of 1-and-1 with 24 seconds left (he is now 4-10 from the FT line this year), then Spears made what appeared to be the game-winning pull-up jumper with 6 seconds left (which bounced twice on the rim before falling through to give his team a 65-64 lead), but the Gamecocks pushed the ball down the court and Heath was called for a foul on Brown with 3.8 seconds left. With the home crowd screaming their lungs out, Brown made the 1st to tie it at 65…but missed the 2nd so we were headed to OT. Brown ended up fouling out in the final minute of OT and Johnson did not score a single PT in the extra period so I thought that the Cocks were cooked, but Meechie saved the day by drilling the tie-breaking/game-winning 3-PT shot with 25 seconds left, followed by the Hoyas missing a pair of threes in the final seconds as South Carolina emerged victorious by a score of 74-71. In the postgame press conference I asked Jackson how he was able to adapt to all of the different defenses that he had to face. He said that there is no defense that can completely shut him out because he is not a selfish player. He complimented his teammate Meechie and said that they have had a lot of talks together since GG 1st arrived on campus:


After Jackson headed to the locker room I tried to get his coach Lamont Paris to admit that GG was the best freshman in the nation. He was not ready to go that far but rattled off a bunch of his attributes such as “talented, mature, and grateful for the opportunity”. He was impressed that a kid who will not even turn 18 for a couple more weeks could admit that his body language was below-average during the 1st half and commended his ability to learn quickly and have some humility:


Coach Ewing was in a bad mood so rather than pick on his team’s 3-PT shooting (3-18) I wondered whether he would say some nice things about Jackson. He did not appreciate the inquiry after a loss but stated that he recruited GG and thought that he was a special player who stepped up in the 2nd half and got some “big boy” buckets:


That is a wrap for now, check back in a couple of weeks for the conference opener when Sean Miller brings his Musketeers to DC.