March 11, 2019 - After Saturday’s impressive Georgetown come-from-behind win at Marquette, Golden Eagle head coach Steve Wojciechowski wasn’t pleased. His team, now 23-8 overall, 12-6 in the BIG EAST may have finished second in regular season play, yet limped into that slotting, having fallen in its last four contests.

As published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he noted “We got to try to figure it out”, specifically pinning the loss to his team’s stopping ability, as “Regardless, when your offense isn’t going the way you want it to, you got to play defense”.

Georgetown, which prevailed 86-84, put up shooting numbers that ratified Wojciechowski’s concerns, the Hoyas logging 45.1% from the field, 57.9% on three pointers. Both marks exceed the respective 43.6% overall and 36.1% on long balls head coach Pat Ewing’s crew managed in BIG EAST play coming into this contest.

Wojciechowski went on to highlight a specific facet of G’Town’s offensive attack.

“And I thought their freshmen guards just had their way with us” said the coach, pointing towards both James Akinjo and Mac McClung. “Credit them, they hit tough shots; not all of them were easy. But you can’t let a backcourt come in here and score 50”.

It was 48 points for the pair, but who is counting?

Akinjo scored 20 of his 25 points in the second half, effectively powering the Hoyas to victory. Three times an Akinjo three pointer tied the game in second stanza action, the last time with 7:04 on the clock – G’Town would never trail again. Ten points were notched consecutively in the last 20 minutes. Akinjo also finished with a quintet each of rebounds and assists for the game.

That contribution was seminal, yet wouldn’t have been decisive in victory if not for McClung’s first half work; he dropped 14 of his 23 points during the initial frame, including seven straight. McClung’s work helped the Hoyas lead 37-36 at intermission.

Marquette, which shot 34.3% generally and 38.7% on three pointers, leading almost 18 minutes totally, got 28 game best points from junior guard Markus Howard, 16 points via freshman forward Joey Hauser. Sacar Anim, a junior guard joined them in double figure scoring with 12 points, as did freshman forward Brendan Bailey (11 points). Junior forward Ed Morrow paced all rebounders with 11 caroms snatched.

Trey Mourning, a senior forward, was G’Town’s best rebounder with seven garnered, followed by freshman forward Josh LeBlanc’s six. Senior center Jessie Govan and sophomore wing Jamarko Pickett both logged 10 points.

Going into this week’s BIG EAST Tournament, Georgetown, now 19-12 on the season and 9-9 in BIG EAST competition, locked up sixth place in the regular season with this win. Doing so guaranteed a first round bye and Thursday match up with Seton Hall. Tip-off is 3.14.19, 930p EST, Madison Square Garden, NYC. Tickets start at $35!

Given that Ewing’s bunch must win multiple games, if not the entire conference tourney to participate in national postseason confab play, defeating MU was huge; a win path of three games, not four, by a squad that has only prevailed in consecutive league games once this season is much easier.

Marquette takes on the winner of DePaul vs St. John’s, that same day, at 730p EST.