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WASHINGTON — Mac McClung missed his first game as a Hoya Saturday as Georgetown hammered Howard 102-67.
Just one game removed from scoring what everyone seems to agree is a freshman school record 38 points, the Hoyas starting shooting guard sat out with a sprained left ankle suffered during the week.
McClung’s status for the Hoyas BIG EAST opener at Butler on Jan 2 is unknown.
“Mac is doing fine,” said coach Patrick Ewing.
“He sprained his ankle. Not sure when he’s going to be back. I’m going to leave that to the trainers and the doctors.”
McClung, who started the first 12 games of his Georgetown career, is third on the team in scoring at 12.3 ppg while shooting 38 percent from the field. Best known for his highlight reel dunks, McClung came into the Howard game as the Hoyas leader in 3-point field goal attempts and was second on the team in both free throws made and attempted.
Greg Malinowski replaced McClung in the starting line-up and scored nine points in a season high 31 minutes. It was the second start of the season for the William & Mary transfer who grabbed a season-best eight rebounds and tied a season-high with five assists.
“I think we have a very deep team to withstand it,” Ewing said of a possible extended absence by McClung.
“He’s an integral part of our team but we have other guys. I believe in the next man up mentality and it’s the next man up. So until he comes back the rest of the guys have to carry the load.”
One of the players who will be tasked with picking up the slack with McClung out is sophomore Jahvon Blair who easily had his best outing of the season against Howard.
Blair, an all freshman BIG EAST selection a year ago, scored a season-high 15 points and tied a career-high with five assists in 22 minutes just one game after playing only three minutes against Little Rock.
“Today was definitely his best game of the year,” Ewing said about Blair.
“He ran the point. He’s normally the one coming off the screens but today he was the one making the plays. I thought he played a spectacular game.”
While not seen on the Hoyas bench alongside Trey Mourning and Omer Yurtseven, Ewing said that McClung was at Capital One Arena getting treatment and watching Georgetown on TV.