WASHINGTON, D.C. – The High Point University men’s basketball team took an 80-45 loss to Georgetown on Thursday night at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Freshman point guard Jorge Perez-Laham was the Panthers’ lone double-digit scorer with 10 points.
“They’re a good team and they played really well,” said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. “It wasn’t a good game for us but there were a few positives. Our freshmen played well. We played well enough defensively to still be in the game at halftime, they just got away in the first four minutes of the second half.”
It was Perez-Laham’s first double-digit scoring performance and he added four rebounds. Freshman Tarique Thompson and redshirt-freshman Cliff Cornish each scored six points and freshman guard Anthony Lindauer scored three, giving the four freshmen 25 points combined. The Hoyas held High Point’s leading scorer and rebounder, redshirt-freshman John Brown, to eight points and seven boards.
Georgetown was led by Markel Starks, who scored 18 points on 8-for-11 shooting and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera scored 17. The Hoyas shot 55.2 percent in the game, including 61.8 percent in the second half. They hit 10 three-pointers.
High Point fell to 3-4 while Georgetown improved to 5-2.
Georgetown jumped out to an 11-2 lead, hitting its first three three-point attempts in just over three minutes of play. High Point never led. It was 20-9 with 11 minutes to play and the Hoyas were 8-for-12 from the floor while HPU was just 3-for-12 at that point. Both teams went cold for the rest of the half, shooting a combined 5-for-27. Perez-Laham’s three-pointer from the corner made it 26-14 and the teams combined for just four points in the remaining five minutes of the half, the Hoyas taking a 28-16 lead at the break.
Georgetown scored the first 10 points of the second half, the first five coming from Starks. The Panthers made some headway, going on a 7-2 run. Perez-Laham’s second three-pointer made it 40-23, but Georgetown followed it up with a 15-2 run that put the game out of reach. Cornish scored all six of his points and Perez-Laham scored seven of his 10 in the second half.
High Point is off for nine days before a home game against James Madison on Dec. 14. The game is at 7 p.m. and is HPU’s second against a CAA team this season. In the other CAA game, High Point topped William & Mary, 80-69.