HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. He was in attendance Tuesday night for the Hoyas’ season opener and prepared this photo essay about their matchup against Le Moyne.
The pregame meal remains as solid as ever: make-your-own fajitas! After back-to-back 25-loss seasons under Coach Patrick Ewing there is finally some reason for optimism in DC. 2022 national COY Ed Cooley took the trip down I-95 from Providence to begin his tenure as the Hoyas head coach and took a moment during the player introductions to appreciate the moment:
Let’s tip it off:
There were plenty of local celebrities in the house including CNN political analyst David Gregory:
…and Georgetown alum/9-year NBA veteran Jerome Williams:
…and 1984 national champ Reggie Williams:
Not pictured: the legendary Rich Chvotkin, who kicked off his 50th year as the radio voice of the Hoyas! Georgetown’s last non-conference win was exactly 11 months ago (a 7-PT victory over Siena on 12/7/22) and they have had exactly 1 home win since then (a 5-PT victory over DePaul on 1/24/23). Cooley brought in a lot of transfers via the portal to try to turn things around but still has a couple of returning players to lean on as well. 1 of those veterans is SR G Jay Heath, who provided instant offense off the bench in the 1st half with a pair of threes as well as an old-fashioned 3-PT play:
The star of the 1st 20 minutes was North Carolina transfer Dontrez Styles. He started the game by scoring 8 PTS in the 1st 9 minutes, then made a corner 3 at the buzzer to give Georgetown a 47-23 halftime lead. Styles set a career-high with 15 PTS and added 10 REB to finish with a double-double. If he can limit his turnovers then he is going to be 1 of the best players on this team:
Le Moyne was making its D-1 debut and SR F Kaiyem Cleary showed out in the 2nd stanza with a pair of threes, a jumper in the lane, and a huge dunk to try to keep his team in it. Unfortunately, they were simply overmatched when facing a more talented team. Another Hoya transfer who looked good in the 2nd half was Rowan Brumbaugh, who led his squad with a trio of trifectas:
However, the top transfer was Supreme Cook, who dominated inside on a variety of layups/dunks/put backs and ended up with a double-double (19 PTS/13 REB/8-9 FG in just 27 minutes) as the Hoyas cruised to a 94-57 win:
In the postgame press conference I asked Dolphins coach Nate Champion how it felt to officially become a D-1 head coach. He credited his school’s leadership for not being afraid to take big steps and always striving for more/optimal: it is a great recruiting tool to play on national TV. He felt it was a special night to get to play on this stage and has always been a dream for him to become a D-1 coach.
I was really impressed with Georgetown because every player seemed to understand his offensive role right from the 1st game of the year so I asked 2 of their stars to confirm/deny that. Styles stated that Cooley went over the film with them and told them what they needed to do, and that they have a great group of guys who go out and compete both on the court and in the weight room.
Cook chimed in that Cooley places a real emphasis on everyone playing their role to the best of their ability. Everyone sacrifices for the good of the team so that they can all play their best basketball.
That is a wrap for now, check back next weekend when Holy Cross comes to DC on Saturday night!