WASHINGTON – Despite a 19-point second-half effort from Kaiden Rice, the Georgetown men's basketball team fell to the Saint Joseph's University Hawks, 77-74, in the third-place game of the Paycom Wooden Legacy Tournament on Friday night in Anaheim, California. With the setback, the Hoyas drop to 2-3 on the season while the Hawks improve to 3-3.
 
ON THE RECORD
"When we came out here, I told them that if making this trip didn't help us when we got back home, that would have been a waste. We have a very young team, they have to learn and this is the only way to learn. I'm disappointed that we lost, but I do think there's a lot of lessons to be learned and hopefully we'll learn from them. As the weeks go on, we'll forget about this." - Head Coach Patrick Ewing
 
ABOUT THE HOYAS

• Kaiden Rice scored a team-high 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the floor, including seven triples, to go along with three rebounds. In the second half alone, Rice recorded 19 of his 25 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and 5-of-6 from behind the arc.
• Dante Harris registered 17 points, three steals and a team-high six assists in 34 minutes of work.
• Timothy Ighoefe pulled down a career-high 14 rebounds while matching his personal best mark with three blocks.
• Donald Carey added 12 points to go along with a trio of boards, pair of assists and one steal.
• Georgetown shot 58.6 percent from the field in the second half, including 66.7 percent from behind the arc.
• The Hoyas outrebounded the Hawks, 38-36, and put up 10 bench points to the Hawks' seven.

 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• Harris opened the game with a jumper on the team's first possession before both teams exchanged buckets to deadlock the score at seven at the 15:30 mark.
• Ryan Mutombo surprised the Hawks with a three-pointer to pull the Hoyas within one, 13-12.
• It was a back-and-forth affair over four minutes until SJU  scored 12 unanswered to take a 29-16 lead at the 6:20 mark.
• Following a Mohammed free throw to end the Hawk run, the Hoyas put on a full-court press, featuring two steals and a pair of scores by Harris and pulling Georgetown to within eight, 29-21.
• Rice drained a shot from behind the arc with 17 seconds remaining in the half, providing the 36-26 score.
• The Hoyas jumped out to a 7-0 run in 1:45 to open the second half, cutting their deficit to three, 36-33.
• After Saint Joseph's went up by as many as seven, Georgetown stormed back to tie the game at 51 on a pair of buckets by Harris and 3-pointers from Collin Holloway and Rice with 12:06 left in the second.
• Following back-to-back rejections from Ighoefe at the midway mark, Carey drained a trey to give the Blue & Gray its first lead (54-53) since early in the opening half.
• Georgetown and SJU matched runs down the stretch with the Hawks taking a two-point edge, 68-66, at the 3:52 mark.
• The Hawks pulled away in the final minute of the game and downed Georgetown, 77-72.

 
OF NOTE

• Rice's 19 second-half points set a season high and surpassed the 2020-21 season's best mark by Javhon Blair (18) against UConn on March 6, 2021.
• With seven treys, Rice matched his best mark of the season set against Siena on Nov. 19.
• Mutombo recorded his first 3-pointer at the 12:57 mark of the first frame.
• As a team, the Hoyas racked up five steals in the opening half, the most in any half since recording six against Butler on Feb. 13, 2021.
• Holloway registered his first points of the season on a layup in the second half, finishing with five on the evening.

 
UP NEXT
Georgetown will return home on Nov. 30 for a Tuesday matchup with the Longwood University Lancers (4-3) at Capital One Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and the game can be seen live on FS2.