WASHINGTON – Four players finished the game in double figures as the Georgetown men's basketball team pulled past Central Connecticut State 85-78 on Saturday night. The Hoyas improve to 2-0 on the season while the Blue Devils sit at an even 1-1.
Jessie Govan (Queens Village, N.Y. / Wings Academy) led all GU scorers with 26 points on 10-of-13 shooting including 2 of 3 from beyond the arc.
James Akinjo (Oakland, Calif. / Salesian College Preparatory) tallied 13 points to go with a team-best seven assists.
Jamorko Pickett (Washington, D.C. / Massanutten Military Academy [Va.]) and
Trey Mourning (Miami, Fla. / Ransom Everglades) each chipped in 12 points, a career high for Mourning. Govan had team highs of eight rebounds, three blocks and three steals in 32 minutes of action. Georgetown shot 45.8 percent from the field on 27-of-59 shooting.
Georgetown opened up the scoring on a 7-3 run with Govan collection all the points on a 3-pointer and a pair of buckets. The Blue Devils cut the deficit to one with a trey of their own but a layup from Mourning pushed the Blue & Gray back up by three 9-6. At 12:52 a CCSU 3-pointer gave the Blue Devils the 15-13 advantage, its second lead of the game. Fresh faces in the lineup saw a 12-4 GU run bolstered by the play of
Josh LeBlanc (Baton Rouge, La. / Madison Prep Academy), a pair of triples from
Jahvon Blair (Brampton, Ont. / Athlete Institute Prep) and a
Mac McClung (Gate City, Va. / Gate City) dunk for the Hoyas to take a 25-19 lead.
Central Connecticut sunk a trey to cut the deficit but Govan and Pickett combined for the next six points to take the nine-point advantage 31-22. A layup from Akinjo pushed the Hoyas to a double-digit lead and Mourning's free throws extended the lead to 13, 35-22. GU went into the break with a 37-26 edge.
The Blue Devils chipped away at the lead through the beginning of the second half, cutting it to single digits, but six-straight points at the hand of Govan brought the lead back to 11 with 12:17 on the clock. As CCSU pushed back within single digits on a pair of triples,
Kaleb Johnson (South Hill, Va. / The Carlisle School) knocked down a trey of his own as the Hoyas held a 55-47 lead.
The teams traded baskets and GU looked to Blair from beyond the arc to give the Hoyas a bit of breathing room, 60-53. CCSU cut it to a one-possession game on an Ian Krishnan layup but Govan had the rebuttal on the other end. CCSU found success beyond the arc but for each triple the Blue Devils hit, the Hoyas found an answer of their own. A Govan trey made it a two-possession game again, 70-65, but a pair of Blue Devil free throws cut it back to three. Pickett nailed a triple, his third of the evening, and Mourning's layup to follow forced the CCSU timeout with GU leading 75-67.
The Blue Devils could not recover from GU's strong play late as a Pickett 3-pointer extended the lead to double digits, 79-67. Both teams traded free throws as the Hoyas held on for the 85-78 win.
Ian Krishnan led Central Connecticut with 28 points.
The Hoyas return to action on Tuesday, November 13 as they hit the road for a matchup at Illinois as part of the Gavitt Tipoff Games. The game will be shown live on Big Ten Network and tipoff at State Farm Center is set for 8:30 p.m. ET. The game can be heard locally on The Team 980 with Rich Chvotkin in his 45th season on the call.
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For ticket information for upcoming games, please visit http://WeAreGeorgetown.com/tickets, call 202.687.HOYA (4692) or email hoyatickets@georgetown.edu.
