Styles, Epps Show Why Process Matters More than Results for Georgetown This Season

Members of Georgetown's young core are all showing signs of adjusting to the college game.

The start to Jayden Epps’ Georgetown career has mirrored the start to the season for this Georgetown team - Bumpy, but with signs of promise occasionally popping up.

After committing six turnovers on Saturday against Mount St. Mary’s, and only scoring 10 points, it appeared the arrow was pointing in the wrong direction for the 6-foot-2 sophomore guard from Norfolk, Va.

But Sunday’s late-game heroics to pull victory from the jaws of defeat against American University, in which Epps scored Georgetown’s last 14 points, spanning both regulation and overtime, showed Epps’ promise, and could serve as the boost the young guard needs to establish himself as this team’s go-to scorer moving forward.

Epps isn’t the only one who has shown flashes, either.

In fact, Dontrez Styles’ start to the season has been one big flash all together.

Styles was named to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll today, after averaging 21 points and 8.7 rebounds per game this week.

While Epps was the star on Sunday night, it’s Styles who has been the team’s best player overall to start the season.

“I think what people see with Dontrez is a young man really coming into his own,” said Ed Cooley, after the American game. “I saw over the last two weeks in practice, his emotional toughness, his mental toughness, his physical toughness, his ability to make shots, and just believing in himself a little bit more, little by little.”

For the season, Styles is averaging 17.0 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game, and is shooting 47% from the field, 40% from three, and 74% from the charity stripe.

While Epps was the player who carried the team in crunch time on Sunday, it was Styles who kept the team in striking distance throughout the game. When the team needed a tough bucket to break a cold spell, it was Styles who was barreling into the paint and attacking the rim to help his team.

“Dontrez is slowly coming up the ranks as far as being a player that is going to be someone the Big East will definitely know about,” said Cooley on Sunday night.

There’s a lot wrong with this team right now. They turn the ball over too much, the frontcourt production is— to put it kindly— a mess, and the three-point defense is still shaky. But performances like Epps’ on Sunday, and Styles’ in nearly every game so far, should provide hope for the future for Georgetown.

You’ll lose the forest for the trees if you worry about individual wins and losses this season. You could complain about Georgetown’s 3-2 record so far this season, or you could focus on Styles’ rapid ascension to stardom, and Epps’ 31-point outburst and late-game heroics.

When looking ahead to the 2024-25 season, it’s the growth of these young players this season that is going to impact winning and losing next season, not the final score of a game in the 2023-24 season.

For all the attention paid to Epps and Styles in this space, Rowan Brumbaugh and Drew Fielder, while not having the same kind of production stats-wise, continue to show signs of settling in as well.

Fielder, who has been replaced in the starting lineup by Jay Heath since the Rutgers game, has shown signs of increasing comfort on both ends of the floor.

Offensively, Fielder has been more decisive with the ball in his hands; defensively, Fielder is third on the team in total rebounds per 40 minutes (10.6) and is second on the team in defensive rating (95.8).

Brumbaugh, a redshirt freshman, has struggled to adjust to the physicality of some opponents so far, but has still shown signs of promise.

While turnovers are an issue (4.0 turnovers per 40), just like they are with Epps, Brumbaugh is averaging 11.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game. That’s pretty good for a point guard in his first five college basketball games.

After the Mount St. Mary’s game, Cooley was asked about Brumbaugh, who didn’t start the second half for the Hoyas.

“Rowan’s a person, he doesn’t get rattled much. This is his fourth college game, so I have to have understanding of where he’s at in his development,” said Cooley.

“Overall, I was happy with what he did, with the understanding that he has so much more growth and development for us to be the program we want to be.”

The challenge for Ed Cooley will be in getting these players to gel at the same time. It’s great that Styles has shown he’s a star, and that Epps has shown he can get cooking in a matter of seconds from deep, but this team needs both to be operating at a high level in unison to reach another level.

That will come with time. The first step is having these players show what they can do individually and have them gain confidence. Next step is getting them to operate together as a team.

Once the ingredients start mixing well together, what follows next will be delicious.