Marcus Derrickson is having a pretty good last few weeks. Not only did his beloved Philadelphia Eagles finally land that elusive first Super Bowl championship, but he twice knocked off BIG EAST opponents with last-second three-pointers and then went into Hinkle Fieldhouse and dropped a career-best tying 27 points on a solid Butler team in a Hoyas’ win their last time out.
So in our latest installment of “Getting to Know,” we caught up with the Hoyas’ 6-7, 250-pound junior forward who is 12th in the conference in scoring at 16.2 points per game, and he filled us in on, among other things, how it feels to be an elder statesmen on a young Georgetown team, what he has learned playing for his Hall of Fame coach Patrick Ewing and which was more important to him - those last-second, game-winning buckets or singing “Fly, Eagles Fly” with the rest of Eagles Nation?
BIGEAST.com: Marcus, you drain a huge three-pointer from the top of the key with 3.9 seconds left in overtime to force a second OT which the Hoyas ended up winning. You drain another huge three-ball with 4.5 seconds to play to defeat Seton Hall and you go into Hinkle Fieldhouse an score 27 points to upset Butler at home. How much are you loving life right now?
DERRICKSON: “I’m just trying to win. We have a lot of confidence that we can do a lot of damage in the rest of the regular season and do well in the BIG EAST Tournament. Everything’s just clicking right now for the team and we’re just rolling with it.”
BIGEAST.com: In the beginning of the season in talking to Coach Ewing, he said for Georgetown to have any kind of success this season he needed you and Jessie Govan to take a big step forward and carry this team. It appears you accepted that challenge.
DERRICKSON: “I just took that as I have to go out every night and play my hardest and try and help out the young guys as much as possible with defensive assignments and things of that sort because we know the young guys can play. Jamorko (Pickett), Jahvon (Blair) and Antwan (Walker), they can all play. So I just try to help them out with little things on defense because there are a lot of experienced players in the BIG EAST. I also just try to go hard every night and leave my imprint on the game.”
BIGEAST.com: Are you guys a better team now than earlier in the season now that you are used to what coach expects from this team?
DERRICKSON: “Of course. And with the freshmen, they went through their little freshman stage, but they’re more like sophomores now and they’re stepping up, too. They went through their growing pains and guys like Jomorko Pickett and Jahvon have been huge for us of late and the whole team is just rolling now.”
BIGEAST.com: Those huge three-balls you hit at the end of the St. John’s and Seton Hall last week, do you like getting the ball in those big spots with the game on the line?
DERRICKSON: “We weren’t closing out games right because we were just making mistakes. We knew we would make some errors because we are such a young team so I just kind of wanted a say in whether we win or lose with the last shot. So I had to step up being an upperclassmen.”
BIGEAST.com: No one had Georgetown picked very high in the BIG EAST this season especially with the Hoyas being so young. But you have 15 wins overall right now and are in the mix to finish possibly as high as fifth in the conference when all is said and done. Have you guys surpassed your expectations so far or is there more to come?
DERRICKSON: “We don’t really focus on what people think and all that preseason stuff. We just want to get better as a team, just get better and continue to grow. We have confidence that we can play with everyone in the BIG EAST. It’s just some little things we were missing and we’re trying to improve on those and we’re looking forward to doing some more damage the rest of the year.”
BIGEAST.com: You went through four straight narrow losses - 74-73 vs. DePaul, 85-78 at Creighton, 96-91 in overtime at Xavier and 73-69 at Providence - and then you knock off Seton Hall and go into Butler and grab a win at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Now you’re off for a week. Did you not want the time off because you and the team were both starting to heat up?
DERRICKSON: “Yeah we kind of wanted the momentum to keep going. But now we really get a chance to rest our bodies for a week and come out even harder against Xavier and keep the momentum going.”
BIGEAST.com: I see you are a big Philadelphia Eagles fan so you’ve been having quite the winter between game-winning shots and having your Eagles become Super Bowl champions. But what were you happiest about: knocking down those game-winners vs. St. John’s and Seton Hall or watching the Eagles hoist the Lombardi Trophy?
DERRICKSON: (Laughs) “Of course I’m always happy for the Eagles but personally I just want to win on the court and help my team.”
BIGEAST.com: You have four games remaining in the regular season and the next three are all at home - vs. Xavier, Providence and Marquette - before finishing up at Villanova. Are the Hoyas, refreshed from their week-long mini-vacation, ready to make some more noise?
DERRICKSON: “We’re a team right here that doesn’t like to do a lot of talking. We just want people to watch and see the result. But we’re definitely ready to come out hard and aggressive for the whole 40 minutes and, if needed, even longer. This is a hungry, gritty team.”
BIGEAST.com: What’s it like being coached by a Hall of Famer and what have you learned from him?
DERRICKSON: “I’ve learned a whole lot from him. He talks to me a lot and I just try to absorb as much information as possible. Even when he’s talking to Jessie I try to apply it to my own game because he has so much knowledge. He knows all the little details that you have to do in the paint to give you an edge over most players. And those little details have helped escalate my game.”
BIGEAST.com: Coach got on you earlier in the season in your game vs. DePaul when you took an off-balance shot with three defenders on you. The clip even went viral. But what did you learn from that situation and has it made you an even better player?
DERRICKSON: “We’ve always got along fine. That was just the wrong shot at the wrong time. When I watched the film there were three people around me so obviously somebody was open. So that was kind of a selfish play and I’m glad he pointed it out to me because now (in that situation) I’m kicking it out to guys like Jomorko and Jahvon who will make those shots and get us going.”
BIGEAST.com: BIG EAST Tournament is coming up soon. Is the tournament more wide open than it has been the last few years?
DERRICKSON: “We know that the BIG EAST Tournament would be a time for us to redeem ourselves for the way we played early in the year. We just want to make a run and hope for the best and get into the (NCAA) Tournament.”