like this guy Brennan:
Crisis averted thanks to a pair of road wins, Georgetown has a new outlook
By Eamonn Brennan Dec 11, 2019
5
WASHINGTON — Jagan Mosely arrived at Georgetown in the summer of 2016. Like any incoming freshman signed on to play his college career at a high-major, ostensibly high-level program such as Georgetown, he arrived with visions of conference title pushes and March Madness glories dancing in his head. By the end of his first season, the coach who’d brought him in, John Thompson III, was gone. By the time the second got going, it was clear he and his teammates — recruited to play Thompson’s anachronistic Princeton scheme — were in not only for a full-on rebuild but also a complete stylistic overhaul. As a junior, that overhaul was led by guards James Akinjo and Mac McClung, promising young talents brought in to more fully realize coach Patrick Ewing’s up-tempo offensive modernization.
None of this was exactly what Mosely had in mind. It is not how he imagined his career would go. Still, he stuck it out. When Georgetown entered the 2019-20 season regarded with a deep, talented, balanced rotation, and with widespread NCAA Tournament expectations, it appeared Mosely’s patience was finally going to pay off.
Then last week happened.
“It was kind of like, wow,” Mosely says. “It kind of felt like I was in a movie. You come to college and expect to go to the tournament every year. You go to the championship every year. Then it doesn’t turn out that way. And then this happens.”
This, in the current parlance, was the Dec. 2 news that Akinjo and fellow sophomore Josh LeBlanc had decided to transfer. Which would have been shocking enough on its own — it’s not often that key players on up-and-coming teams decide to up and leave out of nowhere — had it not also been accompanied by news of a temporary restraining order granted Nov. 20 in D.C. Superior Court against LeBlanc and teammate Galen Alexander, alleging the two had threatened an alleged victim’s “personal safety and well-being.” That was followed by the revelation of another complaint, dated Nov. 12, alleging sexual harassment, assault and burglary by LeBlanc, Alexander and freshman guard Myron Gardner. The latter complaint has since been resolved, with the three men agreeing to stay 50 feet from the complainant. Gardner’s attorney told the Washington Post that agreement did not involve an admission of guilt on the part of Gardner. (Akinjo was not mentioned in any of the complaints.)
Suddenly, Georgetown men’s basketball had issues far larger than the accumulation of nonconference victories, or whether things weren’t flowing offensively. Suddenly, it felt as if the entire season was falling apart.
Except it hasn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, without Akinjo and LeBlanc, the Hoyas unleashed by far their best performance of the season in a win at Oklahoma State (the Cowboys were 11½-point favorites) and then followed it up with another precious road victory, a runaway 91-74 win at SMU last Saturday night.
What could have been a disastrous stretch might have instead saved the Hoyas’ season. And what could have been a tumultuous, crisis-dominated week ahead of Saturday’s rivalry matchup with Syracuse instead found the Hoyas and their coach seeming more collectively coherent than at any point in the season.
“I think they’re in a good space,” Ewing says. “Naturally, it’s rough when you lose two integral parts of your team. Two guys that help you to be successful in the previous year. But I thought the guys stepped up, stuck together, played together as a team and did everything that we needed.”
This is a far cry from the Ewing who branded his team as “too selfish” in the wake of the Nov. 30 loss to UNC-Greensboro. Since then — also since the departures of Akinjo and LeBlanc, and maybe these two things are not entirely coincidental — the same issues with ball movement and offensive flow that spurred Ewing’s comments in the first place have, at least for the moment, disappeared.
Against Oklahoma State, thanks to suddenly lights-out shooting (and 33 efficient points) from McClung, as well as the interior heft of Omer Yurtseven and a thoroughly solid outing from newly-promoted starting point guard Terrell Allen, the Hoyas scored 81 points in 74 trips against a team that was undefeated and coming off a 78-37 win over Ole Miss. Against SMU, McClung had 19 on 5-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc, along with seven assists. Allen had two points and 10 assists, a retro line for a point guard if ever there was one. The Hoyas recorded 26 dimes on their 34 made field goals against the Mustangs. This is always an emphasis of Ewing’s approach; his first two Georgetown teams ranked second (65.2 percent) and 15th (60.6 percent) in the country in assist rate. His 2019-20 team hadn’t come close to approaching that mark. Saturday’s rate of 77 percent was by far a season-high.
“We shared the ball,” Ewing says. “The ball didn’t stick. The ball movement was a lot better than it had been in the past. Nothing to say negative about those guys that are leaving, because they are, or they did, do some great things to help our program. They will be missed. But guys are just stepping up.”
From the inside-out, too, the basketball just felt better — the kind of amorphous change that is hard to notice before it happens but is overwhelmingly obvious when everything starts to click.
“It’s hard being inside and then looking from the outside, like Coach is watching,” McClung says. “But I definitely felt it the last two games, after listening to Coach. Everybody could see it, and we felt it as a team. We felt more connected.”
No one at Georgetown will tell you the team is better off without Akinjo and LeBlanc. (McClung, the long remaining classmate, says: “It’s really none of my business. I wish the best for those guys, they’re my bros for my life, it’s their decision and I don’t really have a comment on it.”) But it is hard not to notice the types of things being said, and draw comparisons accordingly.
At the very least, there is less rotational pressure. Previously, Ewing — always looking to push the pace — seemed determined to use as much of his roster depth as much as possible. With as many as 11 players seeing regular action but fewer seeing sustained minutes, some Hoyas were left, shall we say, less than satisfied.
“(Coach) said that a couple of guys were complaining about playing time and not having that opportunity,” Mosely says. “Now they have chances. Guys are making the best of it. In life when you feel as if you don’t have to — when you can play comfortable, it becomes easier. With a lot of guys, we had like, I guess, 11 rotation guys, you kind of feel like you don’t want to mess up. Now it feels like if you mess up you still have a chance to redeem yourself. It’s guys just feeling more comfortable playing basketball.”
Whatever the reasons, the tenor around the program was undoubtedly more positive than one might have predicted a week prior. What might have originally been a week devoted to Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry hype could instead have become entirely beholden to the mess the Hoyas had become off and on the floor. Instead, at the Thompson Center on Wednesday morning, the atmosphere was somewhere in the middle.
The questions are not going to go away anytime soon. Georgetown’s assist rate improvements have very little to do with the university’s ongoing judicial review about allegations of sexual harassment, assault and burglary, except in so far as two of the players named in the complaints, Alexander and Gardner, remain on the team. Both played reserve minutes in last week’s wins. Last week Georgetown released a statement insisting no student, athlete or otherwise, receives different treatment in instances of university review, though if Gardner and Alexander are eventually disciplined, Ewing’s decision to play them will rightfully come under fire.
In the meantime, Ewing said he had received no timetable for the university’s review process. Asked whether his full roster would be available for Saturday’s game, he replied: “As of now, yes.”
“I think we have a great culture,” Ewing says. “The university, the athletic department, we’re not going to sacrifice our culture or what we’re all about. I can’t worry about what other people think. People are going to think negative or positively, but I know that we have a very good culture here.”
Ewing was steadfast in his belief that he and his team needed to focus on the basketball court: on preparing for Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, on keeping the ball moving, on whatever was happening in front of them and very little of what anyone from the outside world has to say. That will be easier said than done, though easier still if the Hoyas really have turned the kind of corner they seem to believe they have. Winning can’t cure everything, but it certainly doesn’t hurt — especially for Mosely, this team’s lone senior, who has waited four years for the Hoyas to be good and was worried, as recently as a week ago, that his last chance might have already slipped away.
“I look back at pictures and look at how the Verizon Center or Capital One Arena used to be packed (for games against Syracuse),” Mosely says. “We want to get it back like that by the end of the season. At the end of the day, you have to win basketball games.”
Crisis averted thanks to a pair of road wins, Georgetown has a new outlook
By Eamonn Brennan Dec 11, 2019
WASHINGTON — Jagan Mosely arrived at Georgetown in the summer of 2016. Like any incoming freshman signed on to play his college career at a high-major, ostensibly high-level program such as Georgetown, he arrived with visions of conference title pushes and March Madness glories dancing in his head. By the end of his first season, the coach who’d brought him in, John Thompson III, was gone. By the time the second got going, it was clear he and his teammates — recruited to play Thompson’s anachronistic Princeton scheme — were in not only for a full-on rebuild but also a complete stylistic overhaul. As a junior, that overhaul was led by guards James Akinjo and Mac McClung, promising young talents brought in to more fully realize coach Patrick Ewing’s up-tempo offensive modernization.
None of this was exactly what Mosely had in mind. It is not how he imagined his career would go. Still, he stuck it out. When Georgetown entered the 2019-20 season regarded with a deep, talented, balanced rotation, and with widespread NCAA Tournament expectations, it appeared Mosely’s patience was finally going to pay off.
Then last week happened.
“It was kind of like, wow,” Mosely says. “It kind of felt like I was in a movie. You come to college and expect to go to the tournament every year. You go to the championship every year. Then it doesn’t turn out that way. And then this happens.”
This, in the current parlance, was the Dec. 2 news that Akinjo and fellow sophomore Josh LeBlanc had decided to transfer. Which would have been shocking enough on its own — it’s not often that key players on up-and-coming teams decide to up and leave out of nowhere — had it not also been accompanied by news of a temporary restraining order granted Nov. 20 in D.C. Superior Court against LeBlanc and teammate Galen Alexander, alleging the two had threatened an alleged victim’s “personal safety and well-being.” That was followed by the revelation of another complaint, dated Nov. 12, alleging sexual harassment, assault and burglary by LeBlanc, Alexander and freshman guard Myron Gardner. The latter complaint has since been resolved, with the three men agreeing to stay 50 feet from the complainant. Gardner’s attorney told the Washington Post that agreement did not involve an admission of guilt on the part of Gardner. (Akinjo was not mentioned in any of the complaints.)
Suddenly, Georgetown men’s basketball had issues far larger than the accumulation of nonconference victories, or whether things weren’t flowing offensively. Suddenly, it felt as if the entire season was falling apart.
Except it hasn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, without Akinjo and LeBlanc, the Hoyas unleashed by far their best performance of the season in a win at Oklahoma State (the Cowboys were 11½-point favorites) and then followed it up with another precious road victory, a runaway 91-74 win at SMU last Saturday night.
What could have been a disastrous stretch might have instead saved the Hoyas’ season. And what could have been a tumultuous, crisis-dominated week ahead of Saturday’s rivalry matchup with Syracuse instead found the Hoyas and their coach seeming more collectively coherent than at any point in the season.
“I think they’re in a good space,” Ewing says. “Naturally, it’s rough when you lose two integral parts of your team. Two guys that help you to be successful in the previous year. But I thought the guys stepped up, stuck together, played together as a team and did everything that we needed.”
This is a far cry from the Ewing who branded his team as “too selfish” in the wake of the Nov. 30 loss to UNC-Greensboro. Since then — also since the departures of Akinjo and LeBlanc, and maybe these two things are not entirely coincidental — the same issues with ball movement and offensive flow that spurred Ewing’s comments in the first place have, at least for the moment, disappeared.
Against Oklahoma State, thanks to suddenly lights-out shooting (and 33 efficient points) from McClung, as well as the interior heft of Omer Yurtseven and a thoroughly solid outing from newly-promoted starting point guard Terrell Allen, the Hoyas scored 81 points in 74 trips against a team that was undefeated and coming off a 78-37 win over Ole Miss. Against SMU, McClung had 19 on 5-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc, along with seven assists. Allen had two points and 10 assists, a retro line for a point guard if ever there was one. The Hoyas recorded 26 dimes on their 34 made field goals against the Mustangs. This is always an emphasis of Ewing’s approach; his first two Georgetown teams ranked second (65.2 percent) and 15th (60.6 percent) in the country in assist rate. His 2019-20 team hadn’t come close to approaching that mark. Saturday’s rate of 77 percent was by far a season-high.
“We shared the ball,” Ewing says. “The ball didn’t stick. The ball movement was a lot better than it had been in the past. Nothing to say negative about those guys that are leaving, because they are, or they did, do some great things to help our program. They will be missed. But guys are just stepping up.”
From the inside-out, too, the basketball just felt better — the kind of amorphous change that is hard to notice before it happens but is overwhelmingly obvious when everything starts to click.
“It’s hard being inside and then looking from the outside, like Coach is watching,” McClung says. “But I definitely felt it the last two games, after listening to Coach. Everybody could see it, and we felt it as a team. We felt more connected.”
No one at Georgetown will tell you the team is better off without Akinjo and LeBlanc. (McClung, the long remaining classmate, says: “It’s really none of my business. I wish the best for those guys, they’re my bros for my life, it’s their decision and I don’t really have a comment on it.”) But it is hard not to notice the types of things being said, and draw comparisons accordingly.
At the very least, there is less rotational pressure. Previously, Ewing — always looking to push the pace — seemed determined to use as much of his roster depth as much as possible. With as many as 11 players seeing regular action but fewer seeing sustained minutes, some Hoyas were left, shall we say, less than satisfied.
“(Coach) said that a couple of guys were complaining about playing time and not having that opportunity,” Mosely says. “Now they have chances. Guys are making the best of it. In life when you feel as if you don’t have to — when you can play comfortable, it becomes easier. With a lot of guys, we had like, I guess, 11 rotation guys, you kind of feel like you don’t want to mess up. Now it feels like if you mess up you still have a chance to redeem yourself. It’s guys just feeling more comfortable playing basketball.”
Whatever the reasons, the tenor around the program was undoubtedly more positive than one might have predicted a week prior. What might have originally been a week devoted to Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry hype could instead have become entirely beholden to the mess the Hoyas had become off and on the floor. Instead, at the Thompson Center on Wednesday morning, the atmosphere was somewhere in the middle.
The questions are not going to go away anytime soon. Georgetown’s assist rate improvements have very little to do with the university’s ongoing judicial review about allegations of sexual harassment, assault and burglary, except in so far as two of the players named in the complaints, Alexander and Gardner, remain on the team. Both played reserve minutes in last week’s wins. Last week Georgetown released a statement insisting no student, athlete or otherwise, receives different treatment in instances of university review, though if Gardner and Alexander are eventually disciplined, Ewing’s decision to play them will rightfully come under fire.
In the meantime, Ewing said he had received no timetable for the university’s review process. Asked whether his full roster would be available for Saturday’s game, he replied: “As of now, yes.”
“I think we have a great culture,” Ewing says. “The university, the athletic department, we’re not going to sacrifice our culture or what we’re all about. I can’t worry about what other people think. People are going to think negative or positively, but I know that we have a very good culture here.”
Ewing was steadfast in his belief that he and his team needed to focus on the basketball court: on preparing for Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, on keeping the ball moving, on whatever was happening in front of them and very little of what anyone from the outside world has to say. That will be easier said than done, though easier still if the Hoyas really have turned the kind of corner they seem to believe they have. Winning can’t cure everything, but it certainly doesn’t hurt — especially for Mosely, this team’s lone senior, who has waited four years for the Hoyas to be good and was worried, as recently as a week ago, that his last chance might have already slipped away.
“I look back at pictures and look at how the Verizon Center or Capital One Arena used to be packed (for games against Syracuse),” Mosely says. “We want to get it back like that by the end of the season. At the end of the day, you have to win basketball games.”