Chilling with the Colonials

HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. Since the Hoyas were out of town this weekend, he decided to see how the other half lives at GW, so see below for his photo essay about the Colonials’ game yesterday against Dayton.

Based on the pregame meal the other half lives less well: bagels and water…plus they ran out of cream cheese! The good news is that I got to sit on the baseline, but the bad news is that the mop guy sat right in front of me. GW 1st-year head coach Chris Caputo did not beat a single top-200 team in non-conference play but has single-digit wins over UMass/George Mason this month as he prepared to face the highest-ranked team on his schedule all year in Dayton:

The Flyers are known for having great fans and there is a LOT of red in the crowd so let’s tip it off:

Dayton F Toumani Camara has only made 4 threes combined in his past 7 games but knocked down a pair of them in the 1st half while the rest of his team was struggling to score:

I had not seen GW FR F Maximus Edwards play at all this year but he was fantastic in the 1st half with a pair of dunks and a trio of shots from behind the arc. The last 1 came from the top of the key right before the buzzer to give his team a stunning 36-22 halftime lead:

Nope, wrong Maximus…

Nope, still the wrong 1…

There we go!
Flyers’ PF DaRon Holmes II (from the great state of Arizona) was bottled up in the 1st half due to getting double-teamed in the post. For some reason the Colonials stopped doing that after halftime and Holmes’ teammates found him inside for a variety of layups/dunks/put-backs as he finished with 14 PTS/10 REB:

I can make sense of most stats but here is 1 that boggles my mind: Dayton is just 1-3 this season when guards Kobe Elvis/Malachi Smith are both in the lineup but 12-3 when at least 1 of them is out, which has been the case since the day after Thanksgiving due to the injury bug hitting both guys. Smith finally got back onto the court this week and had a pair of 3-PT plays in the 2nd half while making all 5 of his FTs to finish with 12 PTS in 21 minutes:

Elvis has returned to the building…and looked good in his very 1st appearance in 2 months with a pair of threes and a layup to finish with 8 PTS in 13 minutes. I just hope that big brace on his right leg can keep him healthy:

After letting his freshman teammate take care of business in the 1st half, SR PG James Bishop took over in the 2nd stanza and was unstoppable on offense. He made a couple of long jump shots but mostly relied on his speed to get to the basket for a bunch of lefty layups as GW hung on to win 76-69 and improve to 4-2 in A-10 play:

In the GW postgame press conference (home team only this afternoon), I asked both Edwards and Bishop if they really thought they could win this conference (after finishing 8-9 in league play last year). The young stud jumped right in and said, “100%: everyone in the locker room thinks we can win it.” In contrast, the latter veteran explained that they just focused on 1 game at a time and would try to get better every day:

After someone else asked Coach Caputo about rebounding I followed up by noting that his team is now 9-1 when they out-rebound their opponent and 1-8 when they do not. He smiled and claimed that he would use that stat in practice on Monday, then shared a paraphrased version of 1 of his favorite Pete Carril quotes: “If you want good rebounders then recruit players who live near the train tracks.” He admits that some guys just have a knack for rebounding but if you cannot get the ball then at least box out your opponent so that 1 of your teammates can rebound instead:

That is a wrap from Foggy Bottom, but check back in a few days as I head back downtown for DePaul-Georgetown.