March 22, 2019 - The stage was set for a dramatic, positive conclusion for Georgetown, one in which the team’s leading point producer could tie the score with at most 14 ticks on the clock remaining. A raucous McDonough Arena crowd, packing G’Town’s on-campus home supported their Blue and Grey all evening - treating them to overtime and a possible win would have been a highlight in Hoya Nation members’ minds. The fact this game against Harvard was National Invitation Tournament action only increased the drama.

As occurred too much during the 2018-19 season, such a cinematic ending didn’t occur; falling 71-68 Wednesday night.

On that last sequence, the announced crowd of 2,253 witnessed G’Town inbounds the ball with 14 seconds play. Senior center Jessie Govan had a pick and pop play run for him, a shot he missed with seven seconds to play. Classmate, forward Greg Malinowski pulled down the miss, yet couldn’t get off a good shot. End of the line for Georgetown.

“We didn’t execute it the way we normally do because we had different personnel in the game” conceded head Hoya coach, Pat Ewing, who also acknowledged Govan as the set’s primary target. “We got the look that we wanted. Greg got an offensive rebound. He just wasn’t able to get a good shot up at the end”.

That miss wasn’t defining. What was?

“I just think as a team, we didn’t’ get it done” said Ewing. “Made mistakes…didn’t make the right plays, didn’t hit our shots. They out-rebounded us.

“Harvard is a very good three point shooting team. I believe where we lost the game was we kept shooting threes where we should have penetrated the ball, tried to get it in the paint.

“And they did that. They were able to post up. Drive in…suck the defense in. We want to run, we had eight fast break points. And you can’t run if you don’t rebound. We should have been able to dominate them on the glass and we didn’t do that”.

Cleaning the boards was a distinct Harvard advantage, as the Crimson won that battle 39-30. Freshman Hoya forward Josh LeBlanc led the game with seven rebounds, but his opponents enjoyed a pair of guys with six – juniors Chris Lewis and Justin Bassey, a forward and guard respectively.

Their head coach, Tommy Amaker, spread the praise for this “Great team win”.

“I thought different players for us were outstanding” he opined. “Robert Baker (junior forward) off the bench gave us quality minutes. (Junior center) Henry Welsh gave us tremendous minutes. Weisner Perez is a starter for us, tonight was outstanding in his efforts…For our program such a win in the postseason is such a wonderful feeling.

Leading the Crimson, which shot 47.2% overall despite logging 20.8% beyond arch, was junior guard Bryce Aiken’s 18 points. Freshman guard Noah Kirkwood joined Baker with 11 points, while also tallying a game best seven assists. Lewis accounted for 10 points.

Govan put up a game high 25 points. The freshman backcourt of James Akinjo (15 points) and Mac McClung (10 points) followed.

Ewing was honest with his feelings, summing afterward “I’m very disappointed in performance. I’m very disappointed in outcome” a 40.3% from the floor, 23.8% on three pointers affair. “You have to take your hat off to Harvard, they played more together as a team. They shared the ball. They made the plays…that needed to be made, especially down the stretch”.

Resultantly, the Blue and Grey will not play again until next season.

Harvard pushes on in NIT play, traveling to NC State this Saturday for a 730p start.