The 99th meeting between Syracuse and Georgetown has a new look Saturday as two first-year coaches square off when the Orange visit the Hoyas in Washington, D.C.
After Jim Boeheim patrolled the Orange sideline for the previous 47 seasons, Adrian Autry gets his first crack at the Hoyas as a head coach. Georgetown coach Ed Cooley is the new face of the Hoyas (5-3) and already has the team within reach of last season's win total.
Georgetown went 7-25 in 2022-23, including an 83-64 loss to Syracuse. The Orange have won four of the last six meetings between the former Big East rivals.
Syracuse (6-3) enters on the heels of an 81-70 victory over Cornell. The Orange made 13 3-pointers in that one at a crisp 40.6 percent rate with Judah Mintz and Chris Bell each draining five shots from beyond the arc.
"It's big time," Autry said of the 3-point shooting. "That's something that we have not done well. The games that we have shot the ball well, we won from the 3-point line."
Slowing down Mintz (19.6 points) rates as priority for a Hoyas' defense that yielded a season-high 84 points in Saturday's one-point loss to TCU. Georgetown dropped the game on a wild bank-shot 3-pointer at the buzzer that snapped their four-game winning streak in agonizing fashion.
"The game is not defined by one play. OK? And that's all anybody is going to talk about," Cooley said. "We had opportunities throughout the game."
Jayden Epps paced the Hoyas with 24 points against TCU while Dontrez Styles chipped in 18 points and Ismael Massoud added 16.
Epps leads the team in scoring (19.1) and assists (4.5) while making a team-leading 24 3-pointers. Styles (16.4 points) and Massoud (12.5) are key contributors. Massoud has shot just 6 of 22 from the field since returning from a broken hand.
Bell is a complementary scorer for the Orange, averaging 14.0 points per game with a team-high 28 3-pointers on the season.
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