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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Men’s Basketball | Smith’s Double-Double Leads Hoyas

ISABEL+BINAMIRA%2FTHE+HOYA%0ASenior+center+Josh+Smith+led+Georgetown+with+20+points+and+12+rebounds+in+Tuesday%E2%80%99s+win.
ISABEL BINAMIRA/THE HOYA Senior center Josh Smith led Georgetown with 20 points and 12 rebounds in Tuesday’s win.
ISABEL BINAMIRA/THE HOYA Freshman forward L.J. Peak (top left) scored 10 points Tuesday against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Senior center Josh Smith (right) scored 20 points and had 12 rebounds. Senior forward Aaron Bowen scored 13.
ISABEL BINAMIRA/THE HOYA
Senior center Josh Smith led Georgetown with 20 points and 12 rebounds in Tuesday’s win.

“Better.”

That is how Georgetown men’s basketball Head Coach John Thompson III characterized senior center Josh Smith’s performance in the Hoyas’ 78-62 Tuesday night win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Verizon Center. But Smith’s game-high 20-point, 12-rebound effort was better than, well, better.

In his first double-double since he arrived at the Hilltop, Smith muscled his way to the rim time and time again, recording 10 points and six rebounds in each half. Smith’s dominant low-post presence provided the Hoyas with the consistency that they needed in order to put the game away in the second half.

“[It] started with Josh,” Thompson said. “He was pursuing the ball very well today.”

Coming from the reserved coach, who called Smith’s two-rebound performance in the season opener “unacceptable,” this was high praise indeed.

Smith, however, seemed unfazed by both his coach’s previous criticism and current praise.

“I had two rebounds last game. It doesn’t really need to take anyone to tell me that that is unacceptable,” Smith said. “It’s just one of those where it is just effort. I just need to need to go out, and when we get rebounds, we look to run in transition and get guys open.”

Another difference-maker in the game was senior forward Aaron Bowen. Tied with the significantly smaller Southland Conference team at 34 going into the half, the Hoyas desperately needed to find momentum against the Islanders, who, clad in the same blue and green as Florida Gulf Coast University, brought back painful memories of the Hoyas’ NCAA first round exit in 2013.

Thanks in large part to his five second-half steals, Bowen made sure that Texas A&M-Corpus Christi did not repeat FCGU’s feat.

“I look at this as very different, but I think that he can have the same type of effect as [former forward] Patrick Ewing Jr. [COL ’08],” Thompson said. “A couple of years ago, Pat was starting, and then I brought him off the bench and he affected the game with his energy, much like Aaron. Pat was always getting deflections, getting steals, getting rebounds. I think Aaron can have a similar effect on this year’s team.”

Bowen did seem to energize the Hoya defense, which held the Islanders to 37 percent shooting and forced 11 turnovers in the second half — compared to a paltry five in the first.

“That’s how you win games, playing defense,” Bowen said. “That was the mindset on the court in the second half.”

In the first half, however, Georgetown struggled to find its rhythm.

The normally effective junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, who controlled the floor for the Hoyas in the opener, was off the mark from the beginning, shooting only 2-7 from the floor in his 18 first-half minutes. He saw only six minutes of playing time in the second half, during which he did not attempt a single shot.

“He was in a little bit of a funk, that’s going to happen,” Thompson said. “We have one of these teams this year where who knows what the combination is going to be. We have eight, nine, 10, 11 players that we can put out there that I’m comfortable with, and they’re comfortable with each other. We took him out, and we went on a little run, so I left those guys out there.”

That winning combination included Bowen, who finished with 13 points, senior forward Mikael Hopkins, who finished with 12, and freshman forward L.J. Peak, who finished with 10.

Though the Hoyas dwarfed the Islanders in size and length, nine first-half turnovers and an inability to contain senior point guard John Jordan kept Corpus Christi competitive.

“He’s so poised, nothing fazes him,” Thompson said of Jordan. “He just skates along and gets to where he wants to go and places his people, so when you play against a really good point guard like that you have to work.”

After making key halftime adjustments, the Hoyas held Jordan to just 1-6 from the field while Georgetown capitalized on superior rebounding to outscore the Islanders 48-22 in the second half. There were 11 lead changes in the first half, but in the second, the Hoyas took the lead from the outset and did not look back.

Smith, who played 26 minutes total, was subbed out for good with 3:48 left to play after flashing the thumbs-up sign to Thompson several times in the waning minutes of the game.

“If Josh plays with that intensity and effort and that energy, that should happen every time,” Thompson said.

With that statement — both a challenge and a promise — Thompson may have revealed more than he meant to about Georgetown’s thinking this season: How goes Smith, so goes the Hoyas.

The Blue and Gray’s next game is Saturday at noon against Northeast Conference foe Robert Morris University (0-2) at the Verizon Center.

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