Well, that was close.

This afternoon at Verizon Center, the No. 8 Georgetown Hoyas (1-0) earned a win, but not in the way that most expected. The visiting Hartford Hawks (0-1) kept pace with the Hoyas for most of the game – they trailed by only four points with less than two minutes remaining – but sophomores Jessie Sapp, a guard, and forward Marc Egerson came up big down the stretch to give the Hoyas a 69-59 opening day victory.

“A lot of people expected this to be a blowout, but we knew they were a strong team, that they were going to prepare for us really well,” junior guard Jonathan Wallace said. “We knew nothing was going to come easy today.”

Wallace had a solid performance of his own on opening day, posting 13 points, nine of which came from beyond the arc. Fellow juniors forward Jeff Green and center Roy Hibbert also hit for double-digits, adding 17 and 16 point respectively, to lead Georgetown to a gritty victory.

Freshman guard Joe Zeglinski and senior forward Alex Zimnickas paced the Hawks with 14 points each. Zeglinski led the Hawks with five rebounds.

“Our kids fought really hard,” Hartford Head Coach Dan Liebowitz said. “Sometimes size is just too much to overcome.”

Georgetown shot just 41.5 percent from the floor and went just 6-for-23 on three pointers, proving that the team can get the win even on an off day. Hartford put up slightly better numbers, shooting 44.9 percent from the field and going 9-for-26 from deep, but the Hoyas outrebounded the Hawks 39 to 23 – and led 13 to four on the offensive glass – giving Georgetown an important advantage.

Junior swingman Tyler Crawford led the Hoyas with a career-high nine rebounds – many of which were contested – which made up for his less-than-stellar 3-for-12 shooting performance.

“Tyler Crawford can shoot,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “He missed today . but I feel like out of his 12 shots, most of them were wide open and he is gonna make those. . We are a much better shooting team than we were today.”

The Hawks opened up scoring with a trey from Zeglinski, demonstrating early that Liebowitz’ team could and would shoot well from three-point range. Wallace countered with a three-pointer of his own, and from there the two teams would trade baskets for the rest of the half.

Neither side led by more than two points until Georgetown twice stretched out a seven-point lead with under six minutes remaining in the half. As was the case for the entire game, however, the Hawks came back and stuck with the Hoyas, trailing by only four points, 31-27, at the half.

Zeglinski opened up the second half with another three, but the Hoyas then went on a short to run to open up an eight-point lead, 38-30. The 9,654 fans at Verizon Center – most of whom were students decked out in gray – got loud as it appeared the Hoyas were finally going to pull away, but the Hawks would still not go away. Hartford kept it close, taking the lead 39-38 with 14 minutes remaining, but Georgetown took the lead back on a Green layup and the Hoyas would not relinquish their lead for the rest of the afternoon.

When the Hawks threatened late – they pulled to within four at 4:03 remaining – it was two unexpected players that stepped up. Sapp had a key tip-in with 1:56 remaining and then Egerson hit a clutch three at 1:20 to go to ice the victory for the Hoyas.

“It was a hard-fought game,” Wallace said. “They challenged us and stuck with us.”