Very enjoyable game, and I’m excited for the season. I think we’ll be good. 

As someone else said, it really showed that Georgetown had multiple games under their belt while this was our first one with fans or tv. You could see us pressuring a bit in all the airballs we shot from three on open looks. We must have had 6 or 7 - doubt we’ll see that in a game.

And to their credit, Georgetown played well.  The difference was the shooting of Caleb Williams and Kayvaun Mulready, who each went 4-7 from deep.  Mulready was 6-23 for the entire season last year. Maybe there’s a big leap coming for him, but more likely this was just a luck variance in their favor today.  Likewise, I think Caleb Williams was 5-19 from three in their international games, so his performance was a huge bonus.   I suspect the great shooting we saw from them today could actually be their Achilles heel this year, along with a pretty unimpressive front court for the big east.

Enough about tjem - these are my observations on us:

- offense: obviously we didn’t shoot well and we had too many turnovers, especially in the second half. I think it’s going to take a bit to find roles and rhythm, but we could be a really good offensive team with a lot of ways to beat you.

- Defense: we were doing a ton of trapping on the perimeter and trying to speed it up. Georgetown handled the traps well (those games together helped, but also their size) and that got them a lot of open threes.  But i suspect that smaller teams and teams we play OOC will have a really hard time with our length and athleticism.  Also, for most of the game our interior defense was smothering. 

- Garrett - great to see him back, but obviously it’s going to take him some time to shake off the rust. He did look bigger and it seems like his all around game could be improved. Just need him to relax and let that deadeye jumper come back.

Castro - I was surprised at how he was used.  Until the last several minutes, it seems like he would play 3-4 minutes, then sit 3-4 minutes. I know CC will work out the rotation, but we definitely were better with him on the court.  The interior defense was outstanding. He had one really nice back to the basket post move in the second half - would have liked to have seen us work that more.

Autry - seemed more confidently and aggressive defensively.  Otherwise, he’s what we expect.

Chris Jones - the best thing I saw today was that twice he attacked the rim and finished with his right.  Last year teams tried to force him to go right. If he can do that successfully, he’s going to take a big step forward. And we know the defense is great.

Woo - we all speculated on the 5th starter, but few guessed Marshall. He seemed like a solid glue guy. Atheltic finishing, good defense, helped on the boards. Seems like he’ll be a good role player for us.

Bubu - as others have noted, he was impressive. Long, athletic, hit some shots, played good defense.  As one of the previews noted (sorry forget whose - A10 talk I think), Colpoys said he could be an all defense type of player and compared him to Billips from George Mason. The combo of Jones and Bubu is going to make us really tough on the perimeter (in fact, I wonder if we should trap as much as we did when those two guys can just press the help out of the ball and disrupt opposing offenses without the trap).   He’s going to be good and a fan favorite.

Dinkins - everyone has already said it.  The three treys were great, but otherwise he seemed to be looking for his shot too much and not facilitating.  He’s clearly a guy we’ll go to when the offense is struggling, though, and I’m sure he’ll play better than he did today as he gets comfortable. Is he the odds-on favorite for 6th man of the year?

Aranguren - when he first got in, he had two really nice drives where he looked for cutters.  On the first one he hit someone (Woo maybe?), on the second one, the cutter was a half step late and it was a turnover.  After that, Georgetown really smothered him when he drove and there wasn’t much in the way of cutters.  He only got 8 minutes, but I suspect he’s going to prove a really strong asset for us. I think as guys get used to playing with him, they’ll cut to the basket on his drives and most teams won’t have the size to shut down his passes.  Looking forward to seeing what he can do as he gets more comfortable.

Hunger - seemed pretty skilled.  Was a little smaller and a little more mobile than I remembered from northwestern (though he’s not small).  His interior defense is obviously a drop from Castro, but I can’t remember the last time we had a backup center at his level. 

Bevins - didn’t really get to do much.  But hard to remember a 10th man as good as him. 

All in all, while it would have been nice to win, I am encouraged by what I’ve seen.  We are deep, athletic, and seem to have some real talent. 

I suspect that unless we sleepwalk through a game or just can’t hit a bucket (like today), we are going to thump some of these smaller OOC teams by margins we don’t always do. 

And I think that when we get to A10 play, we should be in a good rhythm with more defined roles, hopefully a comfortable Garrett, and depth that could wear down a lot of those A10 opponents. 

Bring on Maine!

Alum '04 wrote:

Last night was awesome, truly a "monumental" local event 40 years in the making. Hopefully we can do this more often and again at the Smith Center.

Did not expect to see so many former players in attendance. Shows you how much they cared about this game. 

Crowd was fantastic, even if it was 49% Gtown fans. It was great to be able to do something really awesome in DC that people looked forward to for weeks in this really difficult political and economic climate we live in. Last night's game was truly an escape.

What's with Ed Cooley riding the officials during a game that doesn't count? He was doing that early.

Those grey unis they wore last night are absolutely awful. Like they let a freshman taking graphic design 101 design those unis.

Totally agree about those jerseys. Why go out of your way to wear a gray and navy uniform when playing a team whose colors are grey and navy?  Also those jerseys don’t have their names on them which is not ideal when half the team is made of new guys I’m just “meeting”.