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 Saturday afternoon for the Hoyas’ game at Capital 1 Arena and prepared this photo essay about their matchup against Wagner.
I had the most delicious pregame meal of the month by far: chicken parmesan/ziti/Caesar salad/tiramisu from Carmine’s! Let’s tip it off:
The last time that Georgetown coach Ed Cooley started 5-0 was 4 years ago when he was coach at Providence. He finished that year by making the Sweet 16 and going 27-6…so fingers crossed:
Wagner entered today 0-4, Coach Dwan McMillan’s tallest player stands just 6’7”, and they are in the middle of a school-record 7-game road trip to start the season. It is simply asking too much of them to give an undefeated Big East team a serious challenge, and Georgetown controlled the 1st half as expected. After not playing in his team’s win over Clemson last Saturday, SO SG Kayvaun Mulready seemed happy to get back onto the court with a layup, an old-fashioned 3-PT play, and a dunk, then focused on his defense in the 2nd half to finish with 3 STL:
In contrast to Mulready’s inside game, his fellow sophomore Isaiah Abraham decided to do his own damage from behind the arc. I was a little nervous since he was only 1-8 from 3-PT land so far this month, but he proved me wrong by knocking down both of his attempts from behind the arc en route to a career-high 12 PTS without a single turnover:
The Hoyas took a 22-PT lead late in the half and coasted into halftime with a 44-27 lead. The Seahawks could have waved the white flag during the final 20 minutes, but Maryland native Jaden Baker gave his hometown fans a reason to stick around. He made several layups and a pair of threes to finish with a game-high 22 PTS, which is even more impressive considering that he had scored exactly 22 combined PTS during the 1st 4 games of his Wagner career:
Georgetown’s defense allowed a whopping 48 PTS in the 2nd half, but at least their offense responded with 48 PTS to balance it out. PG Malik Mack had arguably his best all-around game of the season with 18 PTS/4-7 3PM/5 AST/0 TO despite playing just 29 minutes:
The breakout star was his tall teammate Julius Halaifonua. The 7-footer from New Zealand knew that he would have a lot of pressure to perform after the news earlier this week that fellow 7-footer Vince Iwuchukwu was undergoing a medical procedure that would keep him out until after the new year. However, non-orange Julius did not miss a beat in the low post with a series of layups/spins/head fakes/finger rolls while scoring a career-high 16 PTS, grabbing a career-high 9 REB, and not committing a single turnover as the Hoyas improved to 5-0 with a 92-75 victory:
In the postgame press conference, I did not get to talk to Coach McMillan because his team had to hustle back to Staten Island. I noticed that Abraham now has 13 wins in his 14 career games with his only loss coming to Dayton last November 27th, so I asked him what the key was to being a winner and whether it would feel extra-special to beat Dayton this November 27th. He did not take the bait on the 2nd part but confirmed that the key the the 1st part was preparation. His team prepares every day at practice, so he just tries to bring it every day and compete at the highest level. Coach Cooley chimed in and mentioned a game they had played against Brazil in the GLOBL JAM last August. He started Isaiah without any advance notice, watched him turn the ball over 5 timed during the 1st 6 possessions…and thought that he might be playing for the other team(!). It takes a lot of time/effort to make progress, so to see Isaiah’s growth/development from then to now has been great:
That is a wrap for now, but I am getting on a plane to Vegas tomorrow so check back on Monday for some all-access coverage from the Players Era Festival, aka the greatest in-season tourney in college basketball history!
