November 23, 2019 - Defeating top ranked Duke last night would have been the crown, bench leader victory for head coach Pat Ewing, now in his third season on the Blue and Grey’s controls. A win would have signaled the Hoyas are well on the way to again being, well, a team to be reckoned with, a national entity.
As it turned out Ewing et al didn’t achieve that, falling to the Blue Devils 81-73 in Madison Square Garden. All is not lost.
“I think they responded great” said Ewing, about his team’s total 2k Empire Classic experience, including Friday’s defeat of Texas. “We struggled coming into this, coming up here to New York. But I thought they played with energy, effort, purpose. For the most part we shared the ball”.
Chief among his concerns last night were giveaways and being board deficiencies. G’Town was excessive in both categories.
“It’s hard to win when you turn it over 24 times, when you give them 19 offensive rebounds. I don’t care if it’s NBA, or college” noted the coach.
For comparison, Duke bested the Hoyas 43-29 on the boards generally, garnering 12 more of the offensive variety. The Blue Devils only committed three fewer turnovers, scoring 16 points off them, while G’Town tallied 13 points via Duke’s miscues.
A key factor in the game was foul discrepancy: Duke won that sub-contest with 29 free throws taken to 18, producing 10 extra points. Frustrated, Ewing received a technical for arguing a call in second half action.
“I’m not going to cry about the whistles. It is what it is” started the coach. “But we were up 12 I think in the first half. And then everything – Omer Yurtseven got his second foul, had to take him out” right before the first TV timeout - “And we were still up (seven points), but everything just went bottoms up. The momentum swung, they started getting most of the calls, it just changed. We were fortunate enough to tie it at halftime”
Knotted at 33 via sophomore guard James Akinjo’s shot eight seconds before intermission, hopes were high G’Town could right the ship. It didn’t happen fully with Ewing admitting “The mistakes that we made coming back into the second half hurt us”. This included one turnover and three missed Hoya shots, while sophomore Duke guard Tre Jones initiated a six-zip run by stealing the ball and pulling up on the break. Fifty four seconds later Duke was up six.
Georgetown whittled a 14 point lead to just four with forty two seconds to play, but couldn’t close it.
Ewing’s guys bested Duke for the game 50,9% to 41.4% in field goal shooting, an advantage reduced by their paltry 2-9 (22.2%) showing from the three point line in second stanza play. The Blue Devils making 6-13 or 46.2% of their three balls for the contest hurt Georgetown. G’Town finished at 37.5% beyond the arc over 40 minutes.
Of Blue Devil freshman guard Cassius Stanley’s 21 game high tying points, 20 were notched in first half action. Freshman center Vernon Carey, Jr. scored 20 points, while pulling down a game best 10 caroms. Rounding out Duke’s double figure scoring brigade were freshman forward Wendell Moore (17 points) and Jones (13 points), who also provided the game’s most assists (seven)
Duke (6-0), next plays Stephen F. Austin, in Durham, NC. Tip off is set for Tuesday, 9p EST.
Yurtseven met Stanley with 21 points, all dropped in second half play. He and senior guard Jagan Mosely paced the squad with five rebounds apiece, while sophomore forward Josh LeBlanc (seven points) equaled Omer for game high block honors at four each.
Akinjo dropped 19 points, was his team’s top assister (six), yet had five turnovers. Ewing acknowledged his work, also stressing his young floor leader must continue to improve.
The coach, whose Georgetown (4-2) squad is off until November 30th when UNC-Greensboro comes to Capital One Arena, thinks jaunting north to NYC was a net positive.
“The whole trip is something we can build on…we went toe to toe with the number one team in the country” said Ewing, a star at Georgetown and hall of famer with New York’s Knicks who still calls NYC home. “Yesterday, we beat the number 22 team in the country…Our future is bright”.
