HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel has spent the past few months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming next month. After finally seeing them beat DePaul last month to snap the all-time record losing streak of 29 Big East games in a row, he decided to return to the scene of the win. See below for his photo essay to see if he has become the Hoyas’ lucky charm.
The pregame meal scored points for variety (scrambled eggs/sausage/French toast/biscuit/pasta/tomatoes) but included the worst food I have ever had at a sporting event: cold grits. Let’s tip it off: 
Once again we have a case of 2 coaches heading in very different directions: since winning the Big East tourney in March of 2011, Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing (standing on the left) has gone 12-45. In contrast, Marquette coach Shaka Smart (kneeling on the right) has gone 39-19 and is on pace to make his 2nd-straight NCAA tourney since taking over in Milwaukee:
1 of the very few consistent pieces for Coach Ewing this season has been big man Qudus Wahab, who had started each of the 1st 25 games before missing this 1 due to what Ewing called “personal family issues”. In Wahab’s absence, JR SG Jay Heath made his 1st start since December and looked good with a team-high 18 PTS after getting to the rim over and over for a variety of layups/scoops:
Marquette had an inside presence of its own in SO F Oso Ighodaro, who scored 12 PTS in the 1st half on nothing but dunks/layups:
Unfortunately for the Hoyas, the Golden Eagles ALSO had an outside presence in SO SG Kam Jones, who knocked down a trio of 3-PT shots to help his team build a 45-33 halftime lead:
During halftime I got to spend a few minutes chatting with Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, who was in DC as part of her season-long journey to all 11 arenas in the conference. Her resume is too long to list here but hopefully I will get to interview her sometime before the start of her conference tourney.
Give Georgetown a lot of credit for not throwing in the towel despite a double-digit deficit to the #10 team in the nation. The 2nd half Hoya hero was JR F Akok Akok: he converted an old-fashioned 3-PT play, had a big dunk, and finished with a season-high-tying 5 BLK (his 3rd game this year with that many):
Marquette had 5 guys finish in double-figures as they coasted to an 89-75 victory but the star of the show was SO PG Tyler Kolek. After only scoring 7 PTS in a win at Seton Hall 3 weeks ago, he has now put together 5 straight games of 13+ PPG, and based on his season stats against Georgetown (a total of 23 AST/1 TO in a pair of wins during the past 5 weeks) the Hoya faithful must be thrilled that they do not have to see him again this regular season:
In the postgame press conference I asked Coach Ewing how impressed he was with Akok’s defense. He said that he loves the energy/effort and that Akok made a lot of key blocks down the stretch:
After noting that Coach Smart is 12-3 in Big East play this year and has 5 regular season games remaining to try to break his own record for most conference wins in 1 season (he went 15-3 in the CAA as coach at VCU in 2012), I pressed him on whether it was too early to call this 1 of (if not) the best teams that he has ever coached. He admitted that it is 1 of the top-2 favorite teams that he has ever coached because they really care about 1 another and are dedicated to their teammates. He recalls being picked 9th in the preseason poll and his team feels they can be a lot better than people think because they have a lot of hunger:
That is a wrap for now, but check back in a couple of weeks for the regular season finale when Providence comes calling.