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Georgetown and Illinois aren’t rivals and don’t play in the same conference, but Hoyas men’s basketball head coach Ed Cooley still had some choice words for the Fighting Illini on Saturday.
“I’ve also seen a growth in Jayden,” Cooley told reporters when discussing guard Jayden Epps, who started his collegiate career at Illinois in 2022-23 before transferring to Georgetown. “I talked to him yesterday in practice, I talked to him today before the game. His development defensively, I mean, it’s almost like he’s a new player. It’s something I saw in him his freshman year when he played for that other bulls–t school.”
Illinois head coach Brad Underwood wasn’t exactly interested in engaging in a back-and-forth.
“That’s not even worth wasting my time on,” he told reporters. “I don’t know what he was referencing that about. I know Jayden (Epps) had a productive freshman year here. But I’m not getting into all that. I’ll let our fans and everybody else have some fun with that, which I’m sure they probably are.”
After Cooley and the Hoyas defeated St. Francis (PA) on Saturday, the head coach took to social media to apologize and say he has “the utmost respect for the University of Illinois.”
Epps arrived at Illinois as a 4-star prospect in the class of 2022, per 247Sports’ composite rankings, and was a solid secondary contributor as a freshman while averaging 9.5 points per game.
He has since become far more productive at Georgetown and averaged 18.5 points, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game last season. Yet players improving as their collegiate careers continue is nothing new, and there’s nothing to say Epps wouldn’t have taken a similar leap had he remained at Illinois.
The guard was also more of a focal point of the offense, as he attempted 8.6 field goals per game at Illinois compared to 15.6 last season at Georgetown. Notably, he was slightly more efficient with the Fighting Illini at 41.4 percent from the field compared to 39.2 percent last season.
He has hit 40.3 percent of his field-goal attempts in five games this season but is also averaging a career-best 2.0 steals. That defense is exactly what Cooley highlighted, as Epps appears to be developing into a better all-around player.
Yet the story was more about Cooley than the player given the coach’s comments, especially since neither team was challenged in their Saturday games.
Illinois defeated Maryland Eastern Shore by 47 points.
Georgetown and Illinois don’t play each other this season, although they are each 4-1 in the early going. Perhaps they will both make the NCAA tournament and set up a game that will now feature no shortage of storylines.
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