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 for a pair of games last weekend at the Georgetown MTE and prepared this photo essay about the Hoyas’ matchups against both Mount St. Mary’s and American.
I do not ever recall attending Georgetown games on consecutive days…but I suppose that is the point of hosting a multi-team event (MTE) as they did last weekend. You never know if you are getting breakfast or lunch as a pregame meal for a Saturday 12PM tipoff but Chick-fil-A saved the day with chicken/sausage/biscuits. There were plenty of seats available to see Mount St. Mary’s: good, bad, and otherwise:
Let’s tip it off from my courtside seat:
Not pictured: Mount St. Mary’s SR PG/DC native Xavier Lipscomb, who spent the day in street clothes on the bench with a boot on his left foot. I did not know where the Mountaineers offense would come from in his absence but the answer was the bench. G De’Shayne Montgomery made a corner 3 and a dunk in addition to several layups in the 1st half:
His teammate Dola Adebayo lived up to his lofty last name with a variety of finishes in the paint including a put-back and a baby hook:
Georgetown coach Ed Cooley has some major concerns about turnovers and bench scoring but 1 thing that seems to be going right is the fact that his entire starting 5 entered the game scoring 10+ PPG:
SO G Jayden Epps was able to keep driving into the lane for layup after layup and even added a couple of threes for good measure, but to be a true PG he must improve on his 19 TO through his 1st 4 games:
SR G Jay Heath came off the bench for the 1st 2 games this year but looked quite comfortable as a starter with a couple of layups at the rim and a couple of shots from behind the arc:
JR wing Dontrez Styles came in making 6-13 from behind the arc this year and kept it going with a trio of trifectas before halftime. He was on fire early as he tied his career-high with 15 PTS in the 1st 15 minutes to help the Hoyas build a 43-31 halftime lead:
Styles continued to reach the rim in the 2nd half for several layups and finished with a career-high 26 PTS. His teammate Supreme Cook dominated the paint with an old-fashioned 3-PT play and multiple alleyoop dunks, scoring 15 of his 17 total PTS in the 2nd stanza as Georgetown hung on to win 83-72:
In the postgame press conference I asked Mount coach Dan Engelstad when he expected his injured PG to be back on the court. He said they recently got the X-rays back and that Lipscomb would be meeting with his doctor on Monday. As a vocal/everyday leader with a near-4.0 GPA as a double-major he has never had a bad day and means a lot to the program, and while he was a coach on the floor he is now a coach from the bench:
I wondered if Styles was excited to play again the very next day after such a powerful performance. He agreed…but as someone who just tries to go out and play hard he is mainly concerned with getting another win:
There ain’t no rest for this wicked blogger as it was back to Capital 1 Arena for the 2nd time in as many days to see Georgetown host American on Sunday. We can skip the pregame meal/tip-off because this turned out to be the most exciting game of the year so far. I want to say this was also the most exciting game for American coach Duane Simpkins…but next week is the 30th anniversary of his game-winning layup with 3 seconds left for Maryland in a 1-PT OT win over Georgetown in Landover, which is why he was so calm for today’s matchup:
SO G Geoff Sprouse has been subbing in off the bench this year after being a starter for most of last year. He made 3-6 3PM in the Eagles’ win over Georgetown last year and continued to make it rain with 4 threes in the 1st half:
Georgetown wing Dontrez Styles had 1 of the best games of his career on Saturday and remained hot in the 1st half on Sunday with a fadeaway jumper in the lane, a corner 3, and a couple of layups to help his team build a 35-34 halftime lead despite a huge 23-5 disadvantage in bench points:
American did not fade away in the 2nd half thanks to a couple of local veterans. SR SG Lincoln Ball from Williamsport is just a career 22% 3-PT shooter but knocked down both of his attempts in the 2nd stanza:
SR PF Matt Rogers from Knoxville made a variety of dunks/put-backs/hook shots down the stretch but his most impressive effort began (ironically) with a missed FT with 25 seconds left and his team up by 2. He was somehow able to grab the rebound, make a layup, get fouled, and convert the and-1 to make it 75-70, which appeared to be the dagger:
…but somebody forgot to tell Georgetown G Jayden Epps, who scored a career-high 31 PTS (including each of his team’s final 14 PTS in regulation) to save the day:
He saved his best for last by rattling in a corner 3 with 5.6 seconds left to tie it at 76 and send it to OT…and I had a courtside seat for his heroics:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6-qO65e3f8
Overtime was rather uneventful as American made exactly 1 FG and the Hoyas hung on for an 88-83 victory. In the postgame press conference I asked Coach Simpkins about any advice for winning close games that he had received from the 2 Hall of Fame coaches he played for (Morgan Wootten/Gary Williams). He said that Wootten focused on making free throws and ball security, while Williams emphasized playing as hard as you possibly can until the very end:
Speaking of ball security, I was curious how Coach Cooley was able to get his team to clean that up (just 11 TO in 45 minutes) after back-to-back games with 20+ turnovers. He mentioned that they watched a lot of film because they needed the confidence to advance the ball during pressure and recognize where the advantage is on the floor:
That is a wrap for the weekend, I will be back next week as we inch closer to conference play, and hope everybody has a Happy Thanksgiving!