With exams looming, most of the Georgetown student section took the night off. Luckily for Head Coach John Thompson III, his team did no such thing.
In front of an announced crowd of just 8,013, the Hoyas got off to a torrid start from the field, knocking down 21 of their 29 first half shot attempts en route to a commanding 57-15 lead at the break. Even the oft-criticized Georgetown bench outscored the Tigers 16-15 in the first half.
Savannah State knocked down three three-pointers in the first two minutes of the second half, but the run was short-lived. Over the final 10 minutes, Georgetown went on a 25-3 run, capped off by two free throws from little-used senior walk-on Bryon Jansen. The crowd roared as Jansen’s second try found the bottom of the net, giving him his fifth career point and Georgetown its 100th of the night. When the final buzzer sounded, the Hoyas led 100-38.
“I think that – as much as I came in here the other day and, regardless of the score, didn’t feel like we played well against American – I thought we played very well today,” Thompson said. “I was extremely nervous. Horace has done a terrific job with that program.”
The Hoyas led 7-0 after four minutes, 16-5 after six, and 26-7 after 10. With five minutes remaining in the half, Georgetown had already jumped out to a 32-point lead.
While the Hoyas hit at a 72.4 percent clip in the first half, the Tigers shot just 18 percent. Said Savannah State Head Coach Horace Broadnax, a member of Georgetown’s 1984 national title team: “If the ball is not going in, we can’t set up our press, we can’t get excited about defense.”
For Georgetown, the rout of Savannah State was the final tune-up before Saturday’s bout with No. 17 Memphis. In two important areas where the Hoyas have struggled – bench play and rebounding – they showed significant improvement.
Georgetown’s reserves, which had made few meaningful contributions in the Hoyas first six games, combined for 39 points on 13-of-19 shooting, 23 rebounds and eight assists. Beyond the statistics, Georgetown’s frontcourt backups – freshman Henry Sims and sophomores Julian Vaughn and Nikita Mescheriakov – seemed more comfortable playing extended minutes.
Vaughn scored his first bucket on a put-back 6:41 into the game. Later in the first half, he rebounded an Omar Wattad miss, went back up for another second-change try and drew a foul. He made one of his two free throws.
In the second half, he cut backdoor, took a pass from sophomore guard Austin Freeman and slammed home a dunk to push the Georgetown lead to 50 at 83-33. Later, Vaughn showed off his passing skills, hitting a cutting Summers with a precision bounce pass.
With just under three minutes left in the game, Vaughn showed a bit of a mean streak, when after being fouled on an offensive rebound, he gave the Savannah State defender a bit of a shove after the whistle.
Sims recorded his first highlight on the defensive end, blocking Chris Linton’s jumper 10 minutes into the game. A minute later, he knocked down a short jumper to run the lead to 23. In the final five minutes of the second half, Sims passed up a try from three-point range – where he was 0-for-7 coming into the game – and Clark eventually scored on a short jumper. On the ensuing defensive stand, Sims came away with a steal. A minute later, Sims made a good cut, took a pass from Wright and got fouled at the rim. He made his first free throw attempt.
Finally, with 2:27 left, Sims made his much-coveted first three-pointer.
escheriakov knocked down his lone three-point shot and grabbed a pair of rebounds.
Freshman guard Jason Clark, so far the steadiest of Georgetown’s reserves, led the Hoyas’ bench players with 10 points, five rebounds and two steals. He also recorded one of the game’s top plays when he made an on-the-run pass to freshman center Greg Monroe, kept cutting towards the basket and received the pass back for a slam dunk.
“We’ve got to get those guys in there and not have a significant dip and make sure the understanding of how we’re trying to skin the cat is there,” Thompson said.
Added senior guard Jessie Sapp: “It just came with repetition. Those guys, they practice hard every day. They were a bit nervous at the beginning but they’re starting to get more comfortable. So this was a game for them to believe in themselves and I think they did that tonight.”
On the glass, the Hoyas enjoyed a phenomenal 46-18 advantage. In a bizarre statistical anomaly, the Tigers grabbed twice as many offensive rebounds (12) as they did defensive (six).
Vaughn led Georgetown with eight boards off the bench and only Jansen, who played three minutes, had fewer than two boards. Monroe had seven, Clark and junior forward DaJuan Summers five, and Sims and Wattad four.
Lest they be forgotten, Georgetown’s starters were serviceable as well, combining for 61 points on 70 percent shooting. Summers, Freeman and Sapp all had 14, while Monroe added 13. Chris Wright, the lone Hoya not to go to the charity stripe, added six. No one in Blue and Gray shot less than 50 percent.
The last time Georgetown scored 100 points was last Dec. 15, when the Hoyas beat Radford, 110-51.
In a sign of what Thompson hopes is not to come, Georgetown followed that win with a loss at Memphis.
The rematch is set to tip at 2 p.m. at Verizon Center on Saturday.
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