Teams

Georgetown:
The Hoyas started off slowly but got into a rhythm as the first half wore on, and they closed the half on a 25-9 run to give Georgetown some breathing room going into the break. From there, the Hoyas coasted to a 27 point victory.

American:
For the first 10 minutes of the game, American threatened to repeat their performance against Maryland, holding a two point lead midway through the first half. But the Eagles’ shots stopped falling; they trailed by 10 at the half and never got closer.

Players

Georgetown:
After the Memphis defeat, Roy Hibbert said he was going to be more assertive. He was true to his word, scoring the first basket of each half, and ending with 14 points in just 20 minutes of action. And all of that was done without his trademark undershirt. Hopefully, Roy will continue his dominant play in the Big East season.

American:
Garrison Carr and Derrick Mercer combined for 33 points for the Eagles, scoring 15 of the team’s first 19 on 5-6 shooting. But, as the Hoyas focused more on limiting their open shots, they cooled down, and the Eagles struggled.

Coaches

After AU’s hot start, Coach Thompson decided to use Rivers and Wright for their defense, and that limited American’s scoring options. This switch helped lead to the Hoyas’ run.

Referees

It was a subpar performance for the refs, but they had minimal impact. They didn’t call the flops for the most part, which is good, but they occasionally seemed uninterested in the game.

Fans

The Georgetown students are on winter break, but there were a fair number of students at the game. The crowd was especially amused when American’s Travis Lay tried to save a ball from going out of bounds and hurled it the length of the court and out of bounds.

Number of the Game

75: Free throw percentage of the Hoyas, going 12-16 on the night. Not an outstanding number, but given the recent trend, it’s good to see some improvement.

Deja Gu

Hoya fans may have recognized American center Cornelio Guibunda. He played for Georgetown during the 2004-05 season - the first under Coach Thompson - before transferring to American. He played in five games as a Hoya and averaged only a minute and a half of playing time. As an Eagle, he has started all but one game this season.

For the opening minutes of this game, the Eagles looked poised for another local upset. American guards Derrick Mercer and Garrison Carr combined to start 5-5 from 3-point range and helped the Eagles establish a 6-point lead. The Hoyas responded by toughening their defense and closed the half on a 25-9 run to take a 10-point lead at the half. Georgetown shot 15 for 21 (71.4%) from the field in the first half.

Georgetown pulled away in the second half as their lead was never cut to single digits. DaJuan Summers scored a team-high 16 points for the Hoyas, with Roy Hibbert adding 14 points (6-9 FG). Ten different players scored for Georgetown, and the Hoya bench outscored American’s 30-7. American’s Mercer led all scorers with 17 points.

Georgetown’s record now stands at 9-1 and they will be back in action on Monday at 2:00 pm when they host the Fordham Rams.

Here are your starting lineups:
For the Hoyas, it’s your usual 5: Wallace, Summers, Sapp, Ewing, and Hibbert.
And for the Eagles: Mercer, Carr, Guibunda, Simon, and Rockville native Travis Lay out of Bullis.

The refs are going to be Bob Donato, Bill McCarthy, and Todd Williams.

Keep your thoughts coming during the game.

Since Georgetown is taking on two teams this weekend (yes, we’re counting Monday as a part of the weekend), we’ve decided to combine the predictions this time, and just ask one question:

Which player will score the most points against American and Fordham and what will his point total be?

Now we mean combined points here, so we only want one player. We’re gonna go with Roy with 43 because after the Memphis game, he made some comments about being more aggressive from now on.

What do you think?

Georgetown and American University have a long history. They started playing in the 1938-39 season, and from 1953-1987 they played every single year. So, what went wrong in this local series?

Well, first let’s say that in the 1982-83 season, when Patrick Ewing was a sophomore, Georgetown lost to American university. Yes, it’s true; the Eagles came away with a 62-61 win over the Hoyas one year before Georgetown won the National Championship. Over the following three seasons, Georgetown had distanced themselves from American, as the margin of victory in the three Hoya wins was more than 21 points per game.

Then came the 1986-87 season; the season affectionately remembered by Hoya fans as the year of “Reggie and the Miracles.” The Hoyas won the Big East tournament, they made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, and they nearly lost to American at the Capital Centre. Georgetown leaned on the greatness of Reggie Williams down the stretch and narrowly escaped with a 62-59 victory.

That was the last time the two teams met. It seems like maybe the elder John Thompson thought the pesky American team was a little too bothersome and a little too dangerous to schedule after that game. Now JTIII has AU back on the schedule, and it’s another nice opportunity to see two of the local schools go head to head. Enjoy it while you can. Who knows how often it will happen, especially if American played like they did in the last meeting.