Georgetown Slams Nicholls State

Georgetown men’s basketball Head Coach Craig Esherick wasn’t surprised by the aggressive offensive effort his team displayed Saturday.

According to Esherick, the Hoyas have the ability to consistently shoot like they did in their 90-48 rout of non-conference opponent Nicholls State.

“I’ve been telling people this year and last year I thought we had a good shooting team and the looks that I get when I tell people that range from looks of `this guy must be out of his mind’ to `this guy must never go to practice’ to `this guy must not even watch his team play,'” Esherick said. “Today, the guys shot the ball the way I know they’re capable of.”

The Hoya offense overpowered the Colonels both on perimeter shooting and in the paint. Weak Colonel defense gave the Hoyas the ability to showcase their shooting percentage, which that has risen since Georgetown’s three wins at the Hawaii Pacific Thanksgiving Classic. Georgetown shot 57 percent overall and 73 percent from three-point range, against Nicholls State (1-3), including 7-of-7 from behind the arc in the second half.

The victory puts the Hoyas at 5-0, their best start since the 1996-1997 season. The win is also the largest margin of victory for Georgetown since Esherick assumed the head coaching position in 1999.

Senior center Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje opened the scoring with a dunk 30 seconds into the game and freshman forward Gerald Riley followed with a lay-up seconds later to put the Hoyas up 4-0, a lead they never relinquished.

In the most telling display of Hoya domination, junior point guard Kevin Braswell stole the ball and passed off to Boumtje-Boumtje who slammed it in the hoop to give Georgetown a 31-12 lead with 6:49 left in the half. Twenty seconds later, the play was repeated, this time Braswell dished to freshman forward Omari Faulkner for the dunk.

The rest of the half was marked by improved shooting from a different cast of characters than the usual Braswell-Sweetney-Boumtje-Boumtje corps. Senior swingman Nat Burton put up eight points, sophomore Wesley Wilson had five points including a huge alley-oop dunk off an assist by Boumtje-Boumtje. Sophomore guard Demetrius Hunter went 3 for 4 from the field to finish with seven points.

Nicholls State failed to answer Georgetown offensively or defensively. The Colonels were 8-for-34 in the first half and couldn’t create a fluid offense, especially down low, and were unable to penetrate the Hoyas’ perimeter defense. On defense, Nicholls State struggled against the taller Georgetown line-up.

“I think our size at the beginning of the game just overwhelmed them,” Esherick said.

Georgetown entered the break with a 47-21 lead. The Hoyas shot 56.7 percent in the first half, led by Riley, who scored 10 and shot 8-for-8 from the foul line.

The 26-point margin at the break got even wider in the second half with the Hoyas continuing the same offensive patterns. The second period opened much like the first, this time on a dunk by Hunter.

With the margin increasing in Georgetown’s favor (twice pulling out to a 51-point Hoya lead) and the win effectively in hand, the starters got a rest and the bench got significant playing time. Fifteen Georgetown players saw time in the contest, sometimes with unusual line-up combinations.

Senior guard Anthony Perry seemed to shake off some of the shooting woes that plagued him last season, hitting all three of his three-point attempts in the second half, electrifying the Georgetown cheering section, which began chanting his name. Perry, a McDonald’s All-American as a senior in high school, has struggled with his shot over the past two seasons but showed glimpses of his offensive ability on Saturday. He finished the game with 13 points, the team’s second highest total, and four assists.

“Anthony played extremely well,” Esherick said. “Anthony’s capable of shooting the ball that well all the time and I hope this is a game that helps Anthony continue to get better.”

Starter Braswell shared the point guard duties with sophomore guard Trenton Hillier, both effectively directing the Georgetown offense, and with Hillier seeing more minutes than Braswell. Braswell had six assists and took just two shots, sinking a three-pointer but missing a lay-up, both in the second half. Hillier saw 18 minutes of action and ended the game with seven points and four assists.

“I thought the highlight of the way we played was really Kevin and Trenton and the way they distributed the ball,” Esherick said.

However, while shooting percentages were up, the team sometimes struggled to find a fluid chemistry. Tentative passing and 29 turnovers marked some weaknesses in the Hoyas’ play.

“I thought [Braswell and Hillier] really did a great job of directing the offense. I wasn’t as happy with the rest of the guys on the team in terms of the ball-handling,” Esherick said. “I thought we had entirely too many turnovers.”

The second half also saw a significant drop in the Hoyas’ foul line success. After missing just one of 13 foul shots in the first half (92.3 percent), the Hoyas missed 9-of-13 in the second (30.8 percent). Sweetney and Wilson each missed four in the second half.

Riley led all scorers with a game high 15 points, including going 8-for-8 from the charity stripe.

Even with the Hoyas’ strong shooting on Saturday, Esherick still sees room for improvement.

“I think we can still get better everyday as a team and to keep winning ball games and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re not as good as we’re going to be at the end of the season.

“My job is to make certain they stay focused and realize our job is to make the NCAA tournament this year. You make the tournament by playing well at the end of the season, not at the beginning.”

Georgetown will face non-conference foe Louisville tonight at 7 p.m. at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Last year, the Hoyas downed the Cardinals 61-59 in a last-minute win, after which Georgetown fans stormed the floor of MCI Center.