View from the Student Section: Creighton Upset!

Georgetown not only upset Creighton on Wednesday night—they thrashed them. Creighton scored 51 points against the Hoyas. LJ Peak, Rodney Pryor, and Jessie Govan combined for 53. Peak led the Hoyas’ offensive attack with 20 points, also crossing the 1,000 career points threshold in the process. Jessie Govan chipped in 15 points and seven rebounds, while Rodney Pryor scored a thunderous 18 points.

Pryor turned in a highlight reel performance Wednesday night, with seemingly every one of Pryor’s points coming via some stellar play. Two of Pryor’s plays stood out in particular, as he drove through the lane for a massive slam and completed an alley-oop of an LJ Peak pass.

Overall, the team looked... alive! Or at least they did after the eight minute stretch in the first half where both teams combined for six total points. The Princeton offense existed and wasn’t just an arbitrary designation. There were backdoor cuts, and those backdoor cuts resulted in crisp passes to open men and offensive rebound opportunities. Creighton’s porous defense allowed for plenty of high percentage shots for the Hoyas. Conversely, the Bluejays’ offense lacked direction without star point guard Maurice Watson Jr. running the show. Justin Patton and Marcus Foster carried the offensive load as the only two Jays in double figures.

The Hoyas kept some of their key errors from Sunday’s game vs. Xavier. After allowing the Musketeers to shoot 49 free throws, Georgetown kept Creighton to just 18 free throws. With the Jays shooting just 55% from the line, that further curbed the impact of free throws on the outcome. The Hoyas also grabbed 47 rebounds on Wednesday, although the Bluejays made that easy by missing all but one of their eighteen three-point attempts.

As for the crowd...

Let’s start by honoring Casual Hoya’s lunch blog roots with some food documentation. Behold! Dinner!

I did not hold out much hope for good attendance tonight. But, as the game went on, the crowd filled up, both inside and outside the student section. People showed up not exactly in droves, but still made the Verizon Center less than 100% empty. Early on, the game looked like a typical Georgetown loss, as neither offense was cooking, the crowd was fairly muted, and Jack the Bulldog refused to ride on his skateboard. My guess as of now is that Jack is conducting some sort of protest, either about Georgetown basketball, President Donald J. Trump, or both. (If it’s about Trump, he may want to take pointers from this eagle.)

Speaking of, this came a bit later in the game, but during the silence between the conclusion of one second-half timeout and the setup of the inbound pass, I decided to break my “journalistic neutrality” and shout “Impeach Trump!” at the top of my lungs. People laughed, but I still think that condoning political protests at Hoyas games is how Georgetown can get students to show up. Take advantage of how politically active the student body is!

Anyway, sticking to sports... let’s talk about marriage. One guy decided to take up Georgetown’s offer and propose at the game. She said yes and unsurprisingly, the student section loved it.

At one point, it looked as though we might have had another proposal. Just before this picture was taken, Jack and Dory shared an intimate moment.

Shortly after the proposal, Rodney Pryor brought down the house with his alley-oop. That dunk served as the turning point, as the Hoyas went on an impressive run into the half, and the crowd came to life. That only lasted until early in the second half, however, as once the Hoyas expanded their lead to 16 at the first TV timeout, and 20 at the second one, things got significantly quieter, but for a better reason than usual.

At one point in the second half, I heard a “We Are Georgetown” chant start, which was surprising considering that I have not heard that yet this season. I guess we finally had an excuse to break it out.

The students in the crowd did not insult the Creighton players as often as usual, so I don’t have any witty lines to report. I tried at least one joke at a player’s expense, however. Upon coming across the name of Isaiah Zierden and then seeing a nondescript, auburn-haired white male with a name that sounded vaguely familiar, I asked if he was “that dude from ‘Saved by the Bell.’” Turns out I was thinking of actor Ian Ziering, but it’s still worth noting that both Zierden and Ziering, who also starred in Sharknado, scored zero points tonight.

By the final five minutes, the crowd started its celebration early. First came the reminders that the Verizon Center was our house:

Then came another rendition of the student section’s favorite hit, “Just a Friend” by Biz Markie. Unlike the version at last Monday’s game, the crowd sang it with a bit less sarcasm this time.

And for the first time in a really, really long time, the Hoyas had beaten an opponent of some significance by a wide margin. So we serenaded Creighton one last time, wishing them farewell.

The game carried a bit of special personal meaning to me, as I usually designate one game in mid-to-late January as the “Gyration Master Anniversary Game,” as it was now three years ago this week that I decided to run with my friends’ running joke and create the Twitter account that started all of this. Strangely, the games I choose tend to work out pretty well. In 2015, the designated game was the Villanova upset. In 2016, it was the miracle comeback vs. Creighton. And now, in 2017, it was this win. Now, because you’ve read through me indulging my own ego a bit, I will repay you by uncovering my rather embarrassing first tweet and letting you laugh at my expense.

This tweet was dictated to me after being crowdsourced by my freshman floor common room. I’m still not even sure I personally typed it into my computer.

Anyway, one last thing. I found out tonight, via the one and only Hoya Saxual, that NBC Washington’s sports desk had turned me into a GIF. They used one of the TV clips from earlier in this season, where I seem to be honoring football coach P.J. Fleck and doing the “Row the Boat” dance while another fan tries to lift my shirt up.

Getting to see another anniversary game win and getting turned into a GIF? I guess we can chalk that one up as a good night.

Hoya Saxa! Beat Butler!