BRIDGEPORT – For 20 minutes, it was hard to tell which team was 1-5 and which team was ranked 14th in the country.
The Fairfield men’s basketball team scored the first six points of the game Wednesday night against Georgetown, and matched the heavily favored Hoyas basket for basket for much of the first half, taking an 18-16 lead with 8:36 to play before intermission.
But in the second half, reality set in.
The Hoyas opened up the second half with a back-breaking 17-2 run that put the Stags away in a 73-60 win before a crowd of 5,627, the biggest crowd ever to watch a regular season game at Harbor Yard.
Freshman forward DeJuan Summers scored a career-high 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting for the Hoyas, who improved to 3-1 after suffering an upset loss at the hands of Old Dominion on Sunday.
Mike Van Schaick had 14 points to lead the Stags (1-6), and Danny Oglesby turned in by far his most impressive performance of the year with a season-high 13 points off the bench.
“Credit them, they did a great job. It’s another step in the right direction as far as us being on the floor and getting great experience,” Fairfield Head Coach Ed Cooley said. “We played a great team. We played a well-coached team. I’m proud of the effort our kids gave. They gave a good effort, but just came up short.”
Gunning for an upset, the Stags came out of the gates on fire.
Anthony Johnson opened the game with a dunk just 25 seconds in, then hit a layup a minute and a half later to make it 4-0.
Jonathan Han then picked up a loose ball and hit Van Schaick for a breakaway layup, bringing the lead to 6-0 and forcing Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III to call a 30-second timeout.
The Hoyas responded with a 10-3 run to take a 10-9 lead with 14:05 left in the first half, and the teams traded baskets for the next several minutes.
As the half winded down, Georgetown began to take control.
After the Stags led 18-16, the Hoyas 18-6 run to take a 34-24 lead with 1:08 left in the half.
But the Stags, again showing an ability to play well in spurts against more talented opponents, got right back into it.
They scored the last six points of the half in just over a minute, getting a spark off the bench from Mamadou Diakhate, who, playing for the first time all season after missing time with a head injury, finished with seven points in 10 minutes.
Diakhate hit a pair of free-throws to make it 34-26. Han then stole the ensuing inbounding pass and hit Oglesby for a layup that made it 34-28 with 14 seconds left.
And when the Hoyas tried to get the ball past the half court line in the face of full-court pressure by the Stags, Han stole another pass and hit a streaking Diakhate for a layup that cut the lead to 34-30 with four seconds left.
The Stags, though, couldn’t keep the momentum going in the second half.
Summers and Jeff Green combined for eight points in the first two minutes of the half, and the Hoyas never looked back.
“Same thing that happened against UConn,” Van Schaick said. “We’re still young and still learning, and unfortunately, we haven’t put together a good 40 minutes. . . . We just have to keep building. I thought we were better today than we played against UConn, and we’ve got to keep getting better.”
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