The vibes remain good: Georgetown handles Coppin State

In their final non-conference game of the season, the Georgetown Hoyas easily handled the Coppin State Eagles at Capital One Arena on Saturday. The Hoyas outscored the Eagles 46-23 in the second half en route to an 83-53 win. In a refrain that is hopefully less familiar next season with a stronger non-conference schedule, Coppin State offered little resistance. There isn't a whole lot to learn from this game but — after an up and down first half — the Hoyas once again left no doubt in a game against a wildly overmatched opponent.

The Hoyas were without Jayden Epps but welcomed back Malick Mack. With Mack back, the relatively weak opponent, Xavier and conference play looming on Friday, and Epps being slightly dinged up at the end of the Seton Hall game, this felt like a good opportunity to rest Jayden and give Curtis Williams Jr and Caleb Williams a bit more run. Caleb Williams got the start and the Hoyas took the lead right away which they never relinquished.

Coppin State is bad. Their leading scorer, Toby Nnadozie, was averaging 9.2ppg coming into this one, and they came into the game 1-12, 0-10 away from home. To their credit, they played hard and Nnadozie had his best point output of the season, finishing with 22 including Coppin State's first 11 points. The game was close early, with the Hoyas trying to play at pace but being quite sloppy with the ball and Coppin State showing good discipline and attacking the rim effectively.

However, while the Hoyas were not able to fully shake Coppin State in the first half, they were able push what was only a 12-11 lead at the 13 minute mark to 10 pretty quickly and were able to maintain a 7 to 10 point lead for much of the first half, going in to the break up 36-27. Drew Fielder had excellent first half minutes, and Curtis Williams Jr. showed some shooting promise which we will need in conference play, making 2 quick threes that helped grow the lead from 2 to 8. Mack had a great game in his return, but Micah Peavy and Caleb Williams really struggled from the field. More on both of them later.

The very start of the second half was decidedly not fun, as the Hoyas came out flat and turnover-prone again, but Coppin State was simply not good enough to take advantage. The lead was trimmed to 6 just after the under-16, but that is when whatever Coach was saying really kicked in. Thomas Sorber in particular played like a monster from the 15-minute mark in the second half on, and a game that was 41-35 was 8 minutes later 65-39. 24-4 runs in favor of the Hoyas are new and exciting, and we should all take a moment to appreciate not being on the losing end of a game sealing run like that.

While at times this game felt like a "high-level scrimmage" (Miller Lite Mike's words), the Hoyas locked in and took care of business in the second half, letting their dominant height advantage and obvious skill advantage loose on the Eagles. Sorber finished with 22 and 12 (and 8 TOs, yuck) and Fielder finished with 20 and 13. Mack had a very strong 15 points and 11 assists in his return. Curtis Williams Jr. was 3-4 from 3 and had 2 assists but got into foul trouble and only played 11 minutes. It would have been good to get him a little bit more run with Epps not playing, but the core trio of Sorber+Fielder+Caleb with Mack orchestrating played excellently in the second half, and we understand why Coach Cooley was not going to mess with what they had going on.

Caleb Williams was, as Hainesy put it, "a hooper" in this game. His final line was just ok (2-8, 1-3 from 3, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 block, 9 rebounds), but his presence in this game was felt well beyond the statistics. He keeps the offense flowing, his rotations on defense are pretty good for how young he is, and the crew remains optimistic on his development as a rotation player. He will need to shoot more like he did against Creighton in conference play, but there is a lot to like about his game at this early stage in his career. With Peavy and Williams, the Hoyas have a couple of rotation guys that can affect the game beyond scoring. Very promising stuff.

A couple more notes:

• It should be emphasized that Sorber was "outstanding," growing in to the game and just being a completely dominant force that Coppin State had no way of dealing with.
• Too. Many. Turnovers. 19 turnovers will absolutely kill us in league play. The Hoyas cleaned it up after a very rough start and will need to be better in this aspect on Friday.
• A word about Cap One: boy, Uncle Ted is going to have to pay for some more staff for these games. The announced attendance of just under 5300 felt right ("more people than the Creighton game!" - Miller Lite Mike), and the lines were unacceptably long for the building only being 1/4 full. If one of the draws of the Georgetown basketball program is getting to play in a NBA building and a decent-sized crowd shows up because the team is decent, well, the entire program should want that in-game experience to be good. With the students not around and Ted Leonsis skimping on amenities (only one door open on F St, two food stands open on the lower level, absolutely no plan for entertainment during timeouts and halftime, and as noted by Miller Lite Mike a distinct lack of Hoyas swag worth buying), the in-game experience was decidedly subpar and just simply needs to be improved. One can only hope that a bit more investment is put into concessions, entertainment, merchandise, etc during conference play.
• On the opposite end, the Hoyas vibes are immaculate. After last buzzer sounded, players were signing autographs for kids for a good 10 minutes (see: cover photo). While Niv remains a little skeptical of how the team will perform on Friday vs Xavier, he noted the big difference between letting these players have fun and build relationships with fans directly and whatever <yellow card> thing Ewing's <yellow card> program was up to.

Xavier on Friday at 8pm. Hoya Saxa.