View From Press Row: Bradley Hayes For President

"He's a senior at Georgetown playing against Syracuse. If he's not fired up to play in this game we've made a whole lot of mistakes these last four years." - Coach John Thompson III on the aggressive play, particularly defensively of D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera

Winning Time:  Even though the Hoyas led for almost 37 minutes, this game was won over a stretch that covered the last part of the first half and the first part of the second half.  After Syracuse cut the Hoyas lead down to 31-24, two free throws from Isaac Copeland as well as another timely Reggie Cameron 3-pointer push the halftime bulge to 36-24.

Georgetown then started the second half with eight straight points thanks to Copeland and Marcus Derrickson 3-pointers sandwiched around a Derrickson putback to push their lead to 44-24. It felt like 2013 all over again and it was incredible.

Hayes for President: If there's ever a time to get your career-high, at home, as a senior against Syracuse is a pretty good time to do so.  Hayes was virtually unstoppable against Syracuse in going 8 for 12 from the field for his 21 points while pulling down eight rebounds in 28 minutes.

Syracuse coach-for-the-time being Mike Hopkins joined in the post-game praise of the Hoyas big man.

"He's gotta be one of the most improved guys in the country.  He had a great game tonight. He killed us."

We have to remember that this is a kid who scored just 30 points over three seasons prior to last month.  So who's to blame for those limited minutes?  Well JT3 took jokingly took some.

"It's not just like he started working this summer, he's just now got a coach that's just now putting him in the games. You can blame the coach on that."

Schedule Strong: JT3 was asked about having arguably the toughest schedule in the country and he cut off the repoter with, "Is it arguably?".  After seven games the Hoyas are just 4-3 but they've split with Maryland, Duke, Wisconsin, and Syracuse.  Seeing as the Hoyas were drawing votes in the polls at 1-3, there's an outside chance they will be ranked comeMonday.  I won't say this often but it's too bad that Syracuse lost the other night.  That might have helped.

Misc: DSR passed Gerald Riley ('04) on the scoring list to take over 15^thplace.  Next up, Allen Iverson.  Derrickson has two double-doubles in seven college games.  That's good.  Cameron continues to provide instant offense off the bench after his nine points against Syracuse.  The junior now has 51 points on the season, nearly double his output of all of last season (27).  Peak played a season low 12 minutes due to foul trouble but he did open the scoring with just his second 3-pointer of the season.

Quote of the afternoon (well, for this blog anyway):  Our offense against the press, it was too casual - JT3