HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. With the Hoyas on the road for the rest of 2023 he traveled 2 miles to the west on Thursday and prepared this photo essay about the Alcorn State-GW game.
I had some vacation time saved up when I learned that GW was hosting Alcorn State at 2PM on the Thursday before Christmas. Even though DC is undergoing some serious subway construction I made my way to campus for a Revolutionary experience. The pregame meal at GW remains as consistent as ever: Domino’s pizza and a bottle of water. I did not expect to have any A-list sightings but I saw 2 folks who hold a special place in the hearts of the HoopsHD staff. The 1st was former Loyola MD/Siena coach Jimmy Patsos, who gained fame for his legendary phantom handshake that will mark its 7th anniversary this January (www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1882378982006578), but since retiring from the sideline he has been doing color commentary for Towson and GW games:
We have also celebrated strength & conditioning coach Robert “Handy” Handerahan for the past several years due to having the best name in the sport. After 26 years in Fairfax he finally moved to DC this year to work at GW, and my baseline seat near their bench could not have given me a better view of the legend!
Let’s tip it off in front of what appears to be a whopping 250 spectators during winter break:
I assumed that a 1-11 Alcorn State team with 4 guys out due to injury was going to get dominated but right from the start they proved that they had come to compete. SR G Jalen Hawkins made a couple of jumpers, a couple of layups, and a 3 from the top of the key to finish with 15 PTS in the 1st 20 minutes:
His teammate Stephen Byard came off the bench and showcased a number of neat moves including a head fake, a scoop, and an old-fashioned 3-PT play to help his team hang around:
All of which caused GW Chris Caputo to become the most frustrated 9-2 coach in the nation, but with the lack of crowd noise he spent all afternoon holding in his anger:
His starting SR C Babatunde Akingbola did not help turn that frown upside down after being taken out of the game with 10 minutes left due to injury with the Revs trailing 19-18. He received some treatment from the training staff before heading into the locker room, and while he made it back onto the court he only ended up playing 17 minutes:
It looked like GW would need a gladiator-type performance from somebody else so G Maximus Edwards entered the arena and made a trio of trifectas to help his team make it to halftime with a 39-38 lead. Perhaps 1 day he will pursue his side hustle of becoming…the mop guy:
I kept waiting for the Braves to fold in the 2nd half but Hawkins kept on converting layup after layup to tie his career-high with 24 PTS. JR G Mike Pajeaud had only scored 19 PTS during the past month but got hot after halftime with a number of baskets in the paint plus a late 3 to finish with 13 PTS on 6-9 FG:
GW SR PG James Bishop is 1 of the top scorers in the A-10 but looked lost in the 1st half with a miserable 0-4 FG. He must have received a heck of a halftime speech from Caputo because he made 3 threes and 7 frees in the 2nd half to finish with 20 PTS and move into 5th place on GW’s all-time scoring list:
The star of the day was FR F Garrett Johnson who made 5-10 3PM to set his own career-high with 23 PTS as GW held on for dear life to win 79-75 and improve to 10-2 this year. If you need an inspiring feel-good story this holiday season, do yourself a favor and do some research about Johnson going through NINE rounds of chemotherapy to treat a tumor in his hip and make his way back onto the court:
Instead of heading to the postgame press conference I went to happy hour with a friend at a Lebanese restaurant in Bethesda. That is a wrap for 2023, Happy New Year to all in advance, and check back in 2024 as I get back in the Georgetown groove!