The Georgetown men’s basketball team opens their season tonight at 8 p.m. in McDonough Gymnasium against Bethune-Cookman. After winning both of their preseason games over Army-Ft. Hood, 71-66, and the Latvian Select team, 87-72, the Hoyas are ready for regular season competition. The Hoyas have been victorious over the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats the past three years, winning last season’s contest 83-76.
“The last couple of years, [Bethune-Cookman] has played us very tough. They play hard, they’re disciplined and I certainly expect that we’re going to be in for a tough game, and I’ve told our players that,” Head Coach Craig Esherick said. “And I’ve reminded our players that [in last year’s meeting] we were up by three with 30 seconds to go.”
Bethune-Cookman is a slightly complicated opponent, as its head coach is Horace Broadnax (CAS ’86), a former Hoya. Broadnax and Esherick were both members of the 1984 national championship team, Esherick as an assistant coach and Broadnax as a player.
Esherick expects Broadnax to be able to recognize some of the aspects of his team’s play.
“I think a lot of what we do is the same, and there are some wrinkles that we’ve added since Horace played here,” Esherick said. “I think Horace will be able to recognize the full-court defenses and some of the motion offenses. The press offense is the same.”
Esherick will be going with the same starting lineup that he used in the preseason games. It will consist of junior point guard Kevin Braswell, sophomore shooting guard Demetrius Hunter, freshman swingman Gerald Riley, freshman power forward Mike Sweetney and senior center Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje.
“I’ve played around with a lot of different lineups in practice, and when I put that lineup together, I think it was pretty clear that they’re the best team together as of right now,” Esherick said. “Once we start playing, the picture could change, but I’m comfortable with that lineup as of now, very comfortable. With Kevin, Demetrius and Ruben, there’s an awful lot to look at.”
With the starting lineup featuring 7-foot, 257-pound Boumtje-Boumtje and 6-foot-8, 260-pound Sweetney, the Hoyas will certainly have a physical advantage over Cookman, whose tallest player is 6-foot-9, 195-pound sophomore center Jerry Daniels.
“I think our size is our strength against anybody we play. We have good big people; we have big people who can score,” Esherick said. “And I think Kevin is a strength of ours. There’s not one point guard that I’ve seen that I feel better about than Kevin. I wouldn’t be afraid to play Kevin against anybody that I’ve seen.”
Since the 87-72 preseason win over Latvia Select, the team has been working on playing offense against a zone defense, because Broadnax played a zone against the Hoyas last season. They have also learned several more plays and two new types of defense.
As the season begins, Esherick said he is still unsure about how the team will fare. He expects them to be more successful than last year, but can’t be too confident until they have regular season experience.
“We’ve gotten better since the first day of practice to today just because we’ve learned,” Esherick said. “Whether or not we can apply it against good teams, I don’t know yet. I think we’re going to have a better defensive team, and I think we’re going to have a better offensive team, but until you play against conference teams, until you play against some of the teams that we’re going to play in Hawaii, I can’t tell yet.”