Georgetown 82, St. Francis 65
Micah Peavy's 24 points helped lead Georgetown to an 82-65 win over St. Francis, a more competitive game than the final score would indicate.
POST-GAME ARTICLES
The conclusion of the erstwhile Georgetown multi-team event was widely expected to be a walkover of the Red Flash, with just one Division I win to date this season following an 9-22 record the year before. It was a rough start for St francis, missing its first five and 11 of its first 13 as Georgetown cruised to a 16-4 lead behind eight early points from Peavy. The Hoyas hit five straight and led by as many as 14 before the Red Flash began to tighten the score behind forward Bobby Rosenberger.A 6-5 sophomore, Rosenberger missed his first four attempts of the first half before leading the Red Flash on a spirited comeback, scoring 15 of its final 21 points of the half as the Red Flash shot 10 of its next 14 against a sketchy Georgetown defense. St. Francis came all the way back to take a 34-33 lead with 1:50 to halftime before a four point play by Jayden Epps gave Georgetown a 37-33 lead at the break.
A similar story opened the second half: the Red Flash missed six of its first nine attempts, the Hoyas connected on its first four, and looked to be pulling away, 44-36. Georgetown led by as many as nine midway in the half when it missed 10 of its next 11 from the field, whereupon the Red Flash put together a 10-0 run and took a 57-56 lead with 8:50 remaining.
Stability returned to the Georgetown game plan in the name of Jayden Epps. As had he done at a critical point of the first half, Epps hit a three point jumper on the next possession to return the lead, 59-57. The Flash went cold on its next three possessions, with Georgetown extending the lead at the foul line. A three point play from Malik Mack with 5:35 opened some room for the Hoyas, 65-58, part of a 12-1 run.
Late game shooting failed the Flash, missing nine of its final ten attempts of the game while the Hoyas, still running four starters into the final minute of play, added eight points in the final 1:07 with the game well in hand.
Of the 82 points scored, 47 of those points came from just two players: Peavy (24) and Epps (23), each of whom played a combined 75 of 80 minutes available on the court between them. Bench scoring was confined to seven points for Jordan Burks, platooning with Drew Fielder at the power forward position, but a combined 0 for 6 for everyone else. Georgetown shot 43 percent for the game but suffered another poor effort from the perimeter, shooting 9 for 27.
St. Francis was led by 20 points each from Bobby Rosenberger and Riley Parker.
For its part, the Red Flash hit 10 threes and held a 41-36 rebound advantage, but 20 turnovers and a 2 for 9 shooting effort from Rosenberger after halftime proved too much to overcome.
"We out-rebounded them, and we've been challenging our guys to be able to do those things over 40 minutes," said SFU coach Rob Krimmel in post-game comments. "In games like this, I always tell our guys to put us in a position at the under-four media timeout [but] give Georgetown credit. Down the stretch, they pressured us a little bit, and some turnovers led to some untimely layups, but they got some momentum rolling downhill."
The Hoyas' struggles on perimeter defense, seen last week against Notre Dame, were in evidence in this game and must be addressed further before the schedule steps up in competition two weeks hence. As a HoyaTalk poster observed in post-game comments. allowing a team like St. Francis a 10-0 run will be a 20-0 run against some Big East teams.
Attendance was 3,192 for the game, a slight improvement on Tuesday's assembly of 2,756 at Capital One Arena.
Five games through an eight game homestand, the Hoyas move on to a midweek game Tuesday at McDonough Gymnasium versus Wagner (3-3), who defeated Division II Springfield College 81-46 on Saturday.
Here's the Georgetown half of the box score:
MIN 2FG 3FG FT REB A PF PTS
Starters:
Mack 33 4-9 0-0 3-4 7 4 3 11
Epps 39 3-5 4-12 5-5 6 1 1 23
Peavy 36 6-13 4-7 0-1 3 6 3 24
Fielder 20 2-4 1-3 1-2 6 3 1 8
Sorber 25 3-4 0-0 3-5 5 2 3 9
Reserves:
Ca. Williams 9 0-1 0-1 0-0 2 0 1 0
Cu. Williams 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Burks 14 3-5 0-1 1-2 3 0 1 7
Halaifonua 12 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 2 1 0
Mulready 10 0-0 0-3 0-0 0 0 1 0
Team Rebounds 2
DNP: Fort, McKenna, Montgomery, Asadallah,
Moses, Van Raaphorst, Diouf
TOTALS 200 21-42 9-27 13-19 36 18 15 82
Cooley Apologizes For Post-Game Comment
Head coach Ed Cooley offered an apology following a comment directed at the University of Illinois in Saturday's St. Francis post-game press conference.
COMMENTS AND REACTION
In discussing Jayden Epps' development thus far this season, Cooley remarked that "It's almost like he's a new player. It's something I saw in him his freshman year when he played for that other bulls--- school", a reference to Epps transferring from Illinois, although Cooley not did cite Illinois by name and moved on to other topics following the 82-65 win.Ed Cooley on Jayden Epps' defensive development:
— Karl Heiser (@KHeiserCBB) November 23, 2024
“It's almost like he's a new player. It's something I saw in him his freshman year when he played for that other bullsh*t school.”
?????? pic.twitter.com/mO2PJPecn8
When asked for comment, Illinois coach Brad Underwood remarked that "That's not even worth wasting my time on. I don't know what he's referencing that about." It is unclear if Cooley and Underwood have a history between them, or if this was simply locker room talk that slipped into a public forum.
Later that afternoon, Cooley posted a note on his personal Twitter account which read: "My comment today was said in jest with one of my players, but I admit it was a poor choice of words. I have the utmost respect for the University of Illinois, its men's basketball program, coaches and players."
For its part, it's not like Georgetown and Illinois are rivals: the schools have met only six times, the last of which was a 88-80 Georgetown win on November 13, 2018 during Patrick Ewing's inaugural season. As head coach at Providence College, Cooley met the Illini only once, a 60-59 win in 2015 that predates Underwood's arrival in Champaign by two seasons.
Wrote Illinois reporter Jason Langendorf: "Perhaps Cooley felt Epps was underappreciated in Champaign and thought he was defending his guy. Maybe he even thought he had been mistreated. But the message wasn't a response or reaction, it was delivered unprompted, without further context or explanation. It was a calculated shot wrapped in an offhanded remark inside a monumentally dumb decision. Neither Cooley nor Epps gained anything from the comment. It just came off as sour grapes."
Georgetown officials offered no further comment on the matter.
