After a sloppy start, Georgetown rode a strong second half effort to a 68-60 victory over the DePaul Blue Demons on Saturday afternoon.
Chudier Bile led the way, scoring 19 points and grabbing 10 boards to notch his first double-double of the season. Jamorko Pickett followed close behind with 14 points of his own, 12 of those coming in the second half. The Hoyas separated themselves thanks to their three-point and free-throw shooting, knocking down 41% of their three-point attempts and going an impressive 19 of 21 from the charity stripe.
Entering the game, fans quickly learned that the Hoyas would be playing with one hand tied behind their back. The FS1 broadcast informed viewers that Jahvon Blair, Georgetown’s leading scorer, was out due to a coach’s decision. After the game, Patrick Ewing declined to elaborate on his decision, but did not note that Blair would be back for Georgetown’s next game against Xavier.
The first of half of Saturday afternoon’s matchup was a comedy of errors from both sides. So far this season, Georgetown and DePaul have been the two most turnover prone teams in the Big East, and they more than lived up to that reputation. At times, the turnovers were so comically bad that all you could do was sit back and laugh. On multiple occasions, a Hoya player passed the ball to the referee instead of a teammate. By halftime, Georgetown had committed 11 turnovers, while DePaul tacked on eight of their own.
The turnovers were bad. The shooting wasn’t much better, with both teams shooting just above 30% from the field in the first half. In the early going, neither side could get anything to drop, collectively missing their first seven field goal attempts. Four minutes into the game, the Hoyas finally got something going, draining three three-pointers in the span of three possessions to pull in front by five, a lead they would not relinquish. Two of those came from Chudier Bile, who established himself as Georgetown’s go-to option in the first half. Bile was especially efficient at the free throw line, knocking down 7 of 8 attempts, en route to 15 first-half points.
With Blair out, Patrick Ewing distributed minutes in a peculiar way in the first half. After mostly sticking to a seven-man rotation for the last several games, Ewing went 10 deep on Saturday. Freshmen Jamari Sibley, TJ Berger, and Collin Holloway all saw significant minutes off the bench. The first half was reminiscent of a scrimmage, rather than a conference game, as Berger and Sibley logged nine minutes apiece, and Timothy Ighoefe played more minutes than Qudus Wahab. In the press conference postgame, Ewing said the reason he expanded the rotation in today’s game was in part due to Dante Harris having a “nagging injury.” “It’s something that I knew coming into the game,” said Ewing. “Dante, we didn’t know if he was going to be able to play today, so those guys had the opportunity in practice to show their stuff and I went with it.”
Thanks to Georgetown playing tight defense and DePaul’s inability to knock down open looks, the Hoyas gradually expanded their lead. With 2:46 to go in the half, Bile converted yet another pair of free throws to push the lead to 10. Seeing his team falling behind, DePaul’s leading scorer Charlie Moore finally began to get things going. Behind Moore’s strong play, the Blue Demons ended the half on an 8-2 run to keep things competitive and trim the Hoyas’ lead to 30-26 entering the break.
The wonky minutes distribution changed in the second half, with Ewing starting the half out with his normal rotation. To say that this paid dividends is an understatement. The Hoyas erupted, going on an 18-0 run. The run was boosted by three Jamorko Pickett three-pointers. After being relatively silent in the first half with just two points, Pickett had a strong second half, scoring 12 points, nabbing three rebounds, and even coming up with a block and a steal.
However, Georgetown cannot have nice things, and the Blue Demons promptly went on a 10-0 run before Patrick Ewing called timeout. This seemed to fix things, as a Dante Harris jumper got the Hoyas back on track. Despite apparently fighting an injury, Harris turned in another strong performance, scoring 10 of his 14 points in the second half and dishing out a game-high five assists. DePaul threatened to make it a game several times in the final 10 minutes but never got closer than eight points.
At the end of the day, Georgetown probably should have won this game by a lot more than eight points. DePaul is far and away the worst team in the conference, and they struggled to do much of anything on the offensive end outside of the occasional Charlie Moore three pointer. That being said, the Hoyas were without Jahvon Blair (for reasons that only God and Patrick Ewing know) and weren’t at the top of their game either (see: turnovers), so any win is a good win. On to Xavier.
