January 27, 2018 - The 2018-19 season has been heartache for Georgetown and its fans, with games being given away - at Syracuse and Xavier, a home overtime loss vs St. John’s – or victory wasn’t seized – setbacks in DC to SMU, Marquette and Creighton. A young team and withered fan base went into Madison Square Garden wanting, no needing victory.

That doesn’t consider how much help a win could catapult the Hoyas from the basement in BIG EAST standings, particularly given all but two teams entering today had three or four losses. In essence, tenth place would easily have been departed by defeating homestanding St. John’s, a team with four losses, like Georgetown, and placed third in the league.

The young and plucky Hoyas got it done, prevailing over SJU 89-78 in front of a raucous Madison Square Garden crowd of 17,801. G’Town is now 18-7, 9-4 and third and the BIG EAST, while the Johnnies stand 15-5, 3-4, sixth.

It almost didn’t happen. The Hoyas could have easily fallen into old patterns.

Up 10 points twice in the second half, the last with 8:48 remaining, after leading by four during intermission, Georgetown saw the Johnnies pull within a pair of points with a minute and forty five seconds remaining after junior guard Shamorie Ponds’ layup (credited via a goal tend). That score was fueled by a turnover, a problem throughout for Georgetown, which was credited for 19 giveaways (10 in the second half), compared to just nine for SJU.

“We went on a big run, and they fought back” said head coach Pat Ewing afterward. “The are a good team. We kept our composure, didn’t put our had down, and we just kept on fighting”.

Over the next 34 seconds, both teams played spirited yet imprecise basketball, committing three turnovers (Hoyas had two), with a Diamond style press by SJU wrecking havoc. Georgetown had no shots over this period, the Johnnies missing two.

That last attempt, one by senior guard Justin Simon (five points, team high seven rebounds), followed sophomore forward L.J. Figueroa’s three point attempt. Figueroa (14 points, six rebounds) came down and launched that long ball, a shot made possible by guess what, a G’Town giveaway, this one credited to senior Hoya wing Greg Malinowski .

After Simon’s missed stick back, freshman forward Josh LeBlanc ripped down the rebound for G’Town, outletting the ball to a streaking Mac McClung. The freshman guard, along with four Hoyas raced down the court, where he punished the rim, giving Georgetown an 81-77 advantage as the clock read 1:11.

Seventeen seconds later McClung and LeBlanc teamed again, the former alley-ooping a pass to the latter after a G’Town stop, pushing the score to 83-77. The Johnnies would score just one more point.

McClung provided points all game, finishing with a game best 25 points on 9-19 shooting, 4-10 from three point land. Add five rebounds and five assists to his stat line.

Multiple Hoyas stepped up, including LeBlanc (15 points, six rebounds), sophomore wing Jamorko Pickett (nine points, seven rebounds) and fellow freshman James Akinjo, who nailed a pair of pressure packed free throws with just thirty seconds to play. The rookie point guard logged eight points and a game high seven helpers.

Senior center Jessie Govan can’t be forgotten; the sweet shooting pivot dropped 20 points (7-14 shooting from the field, 2-3 beyond the arc), pulled down a game best nine rebounds and even provided key defense – which Ewing has prodded him to do – by blocking a layup attempt by SJC’s Mustapha Heron, fueling LeBlanc’s late alley oop slam. Govan logged three rejections, more than anyone else.

“I think it’s a good win for us, like coach said they’re a good team” remarked Govan afterward, when asked about beating St. John’s after faltering in so many winnable games. “But we felt we’ve been in every game so far. We just didn’t make any mistakes on our part (to close the contest). We don’t feel like any teams have been beating us, we’ve been beating ourselves

“So to come out and get a win, in front of a hostile crowd, is pretty big for us”.

Ewing, whose team shot 46.9% overall and a whopping 48.1% from beyond the arc, saw synergy between Govan and his shooters: “We believe we have a lot of good shooters on our team. We have great shooters, we can post the ball. They were doing a good job of doubling Jessie from behind and our guys stepped in and knocked down shots”.

Continuing he noted “Our bench did a great job when they came in…The starters played well and the bench played well”. Sophomore guard Jahvon Blair, junior guard Jagan Mosely and senior forward Kaleb Johnson were all celebrated for their contributions.

“This was a total team effort, total team win for us” summed Ewing. Everyone did something key to help us secure this win”.

Next up for Ewing and the guys is Xavier, a Thursday, January 31st, Capital One Arena, 8p EST tilt. It’s another chance to extract get back from a team that should not have defeated them previously.

St. John’s, led in scoring by Ponds’ 21 points, followed by junior guard Heron’s 18, finished shooting 38.2% from the field and 28.9% on three pointers. Head coach Chris Mullin’s group has a chance to improve on those statistics and outcome Thursday, when they travel to high-octane Creighton for an 830p EST start.