There’s nothing like the warm, sunny, breezy shores of Maui, site of the EA Sports Maui Classic. Of course, I’m not going there even though I am technically covering the first round of the tournament when Georgetown faces UNC-Greensboro tonight.
Regardless of the result, the Spartans, along with Belmont, Towson will advance to the far less tropical environs of Murfreesboro, Tenns., home of Middle Tennessee, which will host a four-game regional event while the Hoyas take off for Hawaii to join similarly elite Michigan, Memphis, Tennessee, Duke, UCLA, Kansas and host Chaminade.
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Before that, UNCG will try to rebound from allowing the Volunteers to show 65 percent from the field in a 92-63 loss on Friday, a shooting clip that wasn’t even as good as the Hoyas, who hit buckets at a 66.7 percent clip against Savannah State, the fourth-best under head coach John Thompson III – though, to me, nothing’s worth talking about until they better the 71.7 percent they achieve against Duke back in 2010.
The Hoyas are 8-2 all-time against the Southern Conference. Greensboro has four returning starters, led by guard Korey Van Dussen, who had 12 points against Tennessee, matching his season average from last year, but the Spartans also went 0-15 to start last year and finished 7-24.
This was my piece on Georgetown’s freshmen in today’s print edition. We’ll have to see if Tyler Adams (sprained ankle) makes his first appearance, or if Henry Sims can duplicate his career performance (19 points, six rebounds, three blocks) from Saturday. Remarkably, the win over pretty lowly Savannah State garnered Georgetown ten votes in the coaches’ poll.
