Trojans fall in OT to Hoyas

Freshman Mac McClung scored eight of his career-high 38 points in overtime, freshman James Akinjo added a career-high 25, and Georgetown fought off the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for a 102-94 overtime victory on Saturday in Washington, D.C.

UALR forced overtime when Ryan Pippins made a straight-on 30-footer at the buzzer to tie the game at 84-84.

"I was just hoping that he got a good look at it," UALR Coach Darrell Walker said about Pippins' shot. "It went in. I was happy about that.

"Of course, my players were going crazy. But I wasn't going crazy because I'm thinking, 'OK, how are we going to win the game in overtime? What play can I run?' My mind was somewhere else."

The opportunity was set up when McClung was fouled with six seconds left and the Hoyas up 82-81. He made the first free throw but rebounded his miss on the second and was immediately fouled. He missed the first free throw and made the second. McClung, whose previous career-high was 18 points, finished the game 14 of 16 from the line.

UALR took an 89-88 lead in overtime on two free throws from Nikola Maric with 2:53 left in overtime, but McClung's jumper started a 12-2 run. He had a four-point play with under a minute left to double the lead to 98-90. The Hoyas were 11 of 11 from the line in overtime.

Georgetown was 33 of 45 from the line, while UALR was 32 of 40 as the teams combined for 67 fouls and 5 technicals. Six players fouled out and six finished with four fouls.

The Trojans and Hoyas were back and forth in the first 10 minutes of the game. Dani Koljanin's layup with 9:40 left in the first half tied the game at 30-30.

Georgetown took a 40-35 lead on a jumper by Akinjo, but the Trojans responded with a 15-3 run over the next four minutes. Deondre Burns scored the first four points of the surge, and Maric's three-pointer with 3:02 remaining in the first half put UALR up 50-43. The Hoyas would cut the deficit to 52-51 at halftime.

Offensive production slowed to a crawl for most of the second half. Kamani Johnson's layup with 5:54 left in the second half tied the game at 68-68.

The Hoyas scored the next eight points, but Markquis Nowell's three-pointer cut the Trojans' hole to 76-74 with 2:37 left. Nowell made five free throws in the final 16 seconds to help set up Pippins' game-tying three-pointer.

Walker was happy with his team's effort despite a familiar result -- a fourth loss in five games.

"My guys played extremely hard," Walker said. "Once again, you think about it, I think we had only five or six turnovers at halftime. Then we wound up getting 19 turnovers in the last 25 minutes. Again, we just can't win."

Maric led the Trojans (5-8) with a career-high 27 points and added 8 rebounds, and Nowell had 24 points and 7 assists. Both freshmen also had seven turnovers apiece. Rayjon Tucker had 16 points and 14 rebounds.

UALR shot 52 percent in the first half. Georgetown started 6 of 7 from three-point range.

The Trojans continued to shoot well in the second half, while Georgetown shot 25 percent, but UALR had a majority of its 24 turnovers and was beat up 17-5 on the offensive glass, allowing the Hoyas 18 more shots.

"Darrell, he has a very good team," said Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing, who was a teammate of Walker's in the NBA with the New York Knicks. "They're just young, just like mine. Both teams had an opportunity to win. Fortunately for us, we were able to make enough shots at the end to secure the win.

"Now, I expect nothing but good things out of them for years to come."

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette staff writer Christian Boutwell contributed to this report.

Sports on 12/23/2018

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