Sloppy and kinda familiar, but we have Thomas Sorber - Recapping Georgetown's victory over Fairfield

Georgetown defeated Fairfield on Saturday evening at Capital One Arena. As usual, the gang was in tow to take in the action and unleash the takes.

The Hoyas were favored by 15.5 against the Stags and KenPom had the spread at 15 going in. Everyone who made a pick on the thread pregame picked the Hoyas, but did so with limited enthusiasm aside from (as usual) Hainesy who was (again wrongly) confident the Hoyas would blow Fairfield out. (Fairfield had lost their previous game 96-58.) Understandably, we're all a little shellshocked from the last few years and uncertain what to make of the squad.

Let's start with the atmosphere: despite the game being the full home opener, the crowd was fairly light. There was a good student turnout given the strength of the opponent, but otherwise it very much felt like the same atmosphere from the last few yearsand certainly not nearly as loud as Wednesday's game at McDonough.

The Hoyas started out with Malik Mack and Jayden Epps in the backcourt and Micah Peavy, Thomas Sorber, and Jordan Burks (filling in for an apparently sick Drew Fielder) in the front court. The Stags rushed out to a quick lead and a sloppy Hoyas team was fighting from behind most of the first half. We even had our first line change of the season mere minutes into the game, which included the first Drew McKenna appearance of the season. The Hoyas did take a lead with about 6 minutes left in the first half and went into the break with a 3 point lead on a buzzer-beater from Epps.

Overall, it was a really sloppy half. The offense seemed stuck in neutral with Peavy not as aggressive as Wednesday and Epps again quiet early. On the defensive end, a Stags team that had struggled from three in their loss to Rhode Island hit 5 of their first 7 shots from deep and hit enough shots to keep the pressure on the Hoyas.

In the second half the Hoyas tightened the screws defensively, holding the Stags to just 24 points in the second half. Fairfield isn't a very good team, but the Hoyas forced tough shots, rebounded fairly well, and turned Fairfield over 17 times. The offense was still largely a slog, but the defense allowed the Hoyas to comfortably pull away a bit late in the half. After a late Thomas Sorber and-1 that pushed the lead to 13, we even had a cover sweat that fell by the wayside after some late Hoya fouls leading to Fairfield free throws. All-in-all the Hoyas controlled the second half to cruise to an ultimately comfortable win.

The biggest takeaway from this game has to be Thomas Sorber. He's undoubtedly the most talented big man the Hoyas have had since at least Jessie Govan (and possibly longer) and in two games he's averaging 22.5 points and 11 rebounds. He obviously is largely untested and has to keep it up against stiffer competition, but it's been a really impressive start for the big man. In particular, Uncle Dad is impressed with his post moves and energy. All of us in 104 look forward to seeing him against Big East competition. Peavy had a bit of a step back after his first game and there wasn't really a second "star" of this game, but Sorber was really really impressive.

Other takeaways:

• Drew McKenna made his debut and (as Niv points out) looks like a real basketball player. It'll be exciting to see how he develops. He has a smoothness to him that is fun to watch.
• Jordan Burks is going to kill us all 10 times over this year. Patrick called out he's going to have a 5x5 this season, but one of the 5s is gonna be fouls. (He had 4 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 fouls in this one.) He plays really good defense, but definitely got a little too amped on more than one occasion.
• Julius Halaifonua had another solid game as the backup big, including a really smooth three pointer. Small samples, but he's 50% from three early this season and the shot looks really natural. If he is a deep threat, that can be a huge weapon off the bench.
• In addition to Jordan Burks accomplishing a garden variety of the feat, we had our first "True Vesely" of the season. For the uninitiated, a "Vesely" is when a player fouls out of a game with fewer than 5 points. It's named in honor of Washington Wizards' legend Jan Vesely who made a habit of fouling more than he scored. A "True Vesely" is when a player does it without scoring. The Stags' Louis Bleechmore accomplished the feat in 29 minutes on Saturday. That's a lot of minutes to go scoreless. He was only 0-3 from the field, but also only managed 2 rebounds and 1 assist. An impressive True Vesely if ever there was one. He even chirped at the student section (and at the boys in Section 104 too) when he picked up his 5th. Hilarious stuff.

All in all, the competition gets a lot stiffer from here and the Hoyas are going to have to be a little more consistent and definitely will need better offensive execution against Notre Dame next week. But. they took care of business against two bad teams this week and that hasn't always been the case in past years so there are definitely reasons for optimism. This team has more talent than past teams, seems to play well together, and has Thomas Sorber up front. That mix has worked so far.