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 Monday night at Capital 1 Arena and prepared this photo essay about the Hoyas’ matchup against UMBC. If you would like to check out his prior coverage, please go to:
Part 1: https://hoopshd.com/2024/11/09/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-1-4
Part 2: https://hoopshd.com/2024/11/16/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-2-5
Part 3: https://hoopshd.com/2024/11/23/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-3-4
Part 4: https://hoopshd.com/2024/11/30/hanging-with-the-hoyas-part-4-4
I got another hot pregame meal: make-your-own burritos and chocolate chip cookie. Right before the national anthem there was a sweet moment of silence for former St. John’s coach Lou Carnesecca, who passed away last Friday at age 99:
Let’s tip it off (with plenty of band members/cheerleaders but very few students):
UMBC used an inside/outside combination to hang around for the 1st 20 minutes. G Marcus Banks made a 3 and a pair of jumpers, while F Josh Odunowo converted several layups and a nasty REB/put-back dunk. However, Georgetown kept attacking the paint with G Jayden Epps and big man Thomas Sorber nailing layup after layup as they headed into halftime with a 41-35 lead thanks in large part to a 13-3 turnover advantage. My biggest basketball celebrity sighting of the season came during halftime when FS1 analyst Kris Jenkins walked into the room. He asked me how I was doing and I said that while I was not making any championship-winning buzzer-beaters…I was doing okay:
In the 2nd half Epps stepped outside to make a pair of shots from behind the arc, while Sorber stayed inside and had 1 of the best shooting performances you will ever see: 6-7 FG/11-12 FT (while the entire Retrievers team only made 8-9 FTs). The Hoyas’ strength of schedule is…underwhelming, but after 3 straight seasons of 23+ losses they are currently 7-1 thanks to an 86-62 victory.
In the postgame press conference I asked UMBC coach Jim Ferry about his team’s poor 4-18 3-PT shooting (they entered the game 17th in the nation at 40.4 3P%). He gave a lot of credit to Georgetown’s defense, who was going after his guys and making them take some quicker shots:
I was going to ask Georgetown coach Ed Cooley (who got career win #350) about Sorber’s sensational shooting…but the media member who was called on before me did that so I just passed:
That is a wrap for now, and it will remain wrapped for a couple of weeks as the Hoyas hit the road for the 1st time all year(!), but check back in mid-December when Creighton visits DC for the conference opener.