TORONTO — The Georgetown Hoyas and Japan under-23 team played entirely different versions of basketball on Wednesday.
Hoyas centres Julius Halaifonua and Vince Iwuchukwu dominated the paint and Japan unsuccessfully fired from three-point range as Georgetown, representing the USA, cruised to an 88-53 blowout win to open the 2025 GLOBL JAM tournament at Mattamy Athletic Centre.
There were staggering differences in most statistical categories, including three-point attempts (Japan-38, Georgetown-19), points in the paint (Georgetown-52, Japan-14), fast break points (Georgetown-21, Japan-5) and assists (Georgetown-24, Japan-12).
Halaifonua opened the game by backing down his defender on a post-up and finishing at the rim with ease. It was the first of eight points generated from the paint in the first quarter by the seven-foot New Zealander, as he made another back-down basket on the next possession and drew two shooting fouls in the frame, making all four free throws.
A four-star recruit out of the NBA Global Academy Australia, Halaifonua showed a well-rounded game, dominating the paint physically, threading a pass to fellow big man Iwchukwu on a cut for an open make and stuffing an attempted layup on a quick drive to the hoop by starting point guard Ryosei Sato.
“ We feel all of our bigs are really skilled post passers,” said Georgetown coach Ed Cooley after the game. “And again, when you look at unselfish play. Indicative of what Deshaun said.”
You know, if we have a matchup, we like to play out of the post, we can play off the high post or the low posts. We just knew we had a size advantage. We knew we had a physicality advantage. And again, that was today. Tomorrow will be a totally different game. We’ll play in front of a sold-out house.”
Georgetown Guard DeShawn Harris-Smith finished with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting, with 11 rebounds and eight assists — all team highs. Halaifonua scored 14 points, going 5-of-6 from the floor while adding three rebounds and two assists.
Sato and 18-year-old University of Seattle commit Yuto Kawashima scored nine points apiece to lead Japan.
The majority of Japan’s attempts and points came from distance, as they struggled to make any headway in the paint against Halaifonua and Iwuchukwu.
Troy Murphy Jr. scored first for Japan with a corner three, and Sato, Riku Segawa and Hiyuu Ozawa each added a triple, but they shot only 5-of-22 from long range through the first half in comparison to Georgetown’s 3-of-8.
Each team finished with five first-quarter turnovers, yet Japan’s proved more costly, as Georgetown outscored them 7-2 in points off turnovers. This gap expanded to 15-2 as the Hoyas’ lead grew in the second quarter.
Japan struggled to take care of the ball, making multiple unforced giveaways. Sato kicked to the corner in transition, but Hayato Wakugawa mishandled the ball off his foot out of bounds. Kawashima fumbled the ball away trying to dribble out of a post-up.
An airballed three-point attempt by Japan led to easy fast break points the other way as Malik Mack found Isaiah Abraham streaking down the lane for a layup. Abraham followed with a catch-and-shoot three from above the break moments later to extend the Hoyas’ lead to 16-6 on a 7-0 run.
Sato tried to feed into the paint in transition, but the pass slipped through Kawashima’s hands for Japan’s third avoidable turnover of the quarter.
Kawashima finished on a nice drive to the rim, but Harris-Smith responded with a shot-clock beating runner at the other end to maintain Georgetown’s lead. The six-foot-five guard followed with back-to-back transition buckets, first navigating traffic with poise and then following with a fast-paced drive into contact for an and-one finish.
The Hoyas showed full-court ball pressure at times, forcing a turnover in the backcourt in the second and also crashing the offensive glass aggressively.
The game quickly got out of hand in the second quarter, with Georgetown facing little to no resistance on their cuts and drives to the rim. Harris-Smith kept pouring on points in transition, driving into crowds and finding a way to finish. Japan had no answer for the Hoyas’ size. Halaifonua’s dominance continued as he made a smooth drop-step on Leon Watanabe on the block for another pretty make in the paint to extend Georgetown’s lead to 44-18.
After missing a couple shots to start, Mack made a difficult two-dribble stop, hesitation and pull-up jumper from the elbow, also drawing contact for an and-one. The six-foot-two guard averaged 12.9 points in the NCAA regular season for Georgetown last year, the most of any returning player on the roster.
Georgetown kept piling on to start the third as Japan missed their three-point attempts by a mile. Maryland native Caleb Williams scored five quick points on a catch-and-shoot corner three and made a layup on a drive, and Halaifonua dunked after getting lay down pass under the basket. Harris-Smith knocked down a triple and Halaifonua stuck a short-corner jumper to punctuate the game-high 14-0 run, putting an already excessive lead even further out of reach.
“ I mean playing three guards, I feel like I’m gonna be the biggest guard,” said the six-foot-five Harris-Smith after the game. “It’s gonna be a mismatch problem for every team. So whenever I got a mismatch, I feel like I can turn, it’s easier to see the court when I got my back to the basket and you get closer, make easier reads. I just saw Caleb (Williams) wide open, threw the pass and he knocked it down.”
Segawa opened the fourth quarter by draining a triple from the top of the floor after coming off a wide pin-down screen. Kawashima also added five garbage-time points in the frame. The University of Seattle commit previously competed against Halaifouna in the 2022 U17 men’s championship semifinal game, with the two representing Japan and New Zealand, respectively.
AloJapan.com