Windsor’s Primo Spears, scoring big at Georgetown, coming home to play UConn
Patrick Ewing couldn’t have looked more pleased as he took his seat with Primo Spears joining him.
“Damnnnnn,” Ewing said, beaming and nodding over Spears’ blue suit and bow tie. “This guy right here played his butt off. He stepped up. He got the job done on offense and on defense. That’s why he’s here.”
This was after Spears, who played at Windsor High, scored 28 in his debut for Georgetown, a season-opening win over Coppin State. The 6-foot-3 sophomore who transferred from Duquesne was a little nervous the first time he walked into the office of the 7-foot Hall of Famer and original Dream Teamer, but soon realized they were kindred spirits.
“He’s a legend, and when I walked into his office my stomach kind of dropped,” said Spears, averaging 17.6 points, 4.6 assists for the Hoyas. “He expected a lot out of me. We had the same record last year at Duquesne as they did here at Georgetown, so we both have chips on our shoulder. He’s eager to win and so am I, and I feel like we click great here . ... He always tells me, I’m young, but I’ve got to have an ‘old soul.’ ”
Actually, Duquesne was 6-24 last season, Georgetown 6-25, 0-19 in the Big East, which grew the chip, and its weight, on Ewing’s shoulder. By the second half of that first game, Spears, who has two year’s eligibility after this season, knew he’d found a basketball home where he could become a more complete point guard. He has scored 22 in each of the last two games, losses to Syracuse and Xavier, and the Hoyas (5-7, 0-1) have been somewhat more successful.
“Coach Pat loves to play fast,” Spears said. “And we got on the break and got stops and were able to beat them down the floor in transition and I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the team for me, having wings that can run and big men that can finish. I knew I had made the right decision.”
Spears will be back home for real Tuesday night, leading the Hoyas against UConn at Gampel Pavilion, smack in the middle of the kind of Big East battle he grew up with.
“I was a big Kemba Walker fan growing up,” Spears said. “My dad did take me to some UConn games. It was great, seeing the high level basketball with Jim Calhoun there. It’s going be fun, I’m just ready to get back home. I haven’t been in Connecticut since June, it’s going to be fun and I know my family and friends are going to be there to support. There’s going to be great energy in the building.”
Spears averaged 27.5 points and 9.5 assists as a junior at Windsor, including a 41-point game vs. East Catholic. After that season he went to Mt. Zion Prep in Maryland. At Duquesne he started 28 of 30 games as a freshman and led the team in minutes (32.2), scoring (12.7) and assists (3.0). Then he hit the transfer portal and cut his list to TCU, Maryland and Oklahoma. On his visit to Maryland, Georgetown called and asked him to stop by and that was that.
UConn did reach out to him, Spears said, but not before he had made up his mind. These things have a way of working out; the Huskies did rather well for themselves in the portal.
As a Hoya, Spears is often hooking up with a former, and very popular Husky: Akok Akok, averaging 6.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game.
“Akok is a great piece, he’s one of the leaders on this team,” Spears said. “He’s a great shot blocker, one of the best I’ve ever seen, he’s able to catch and shoot and stretch the floor. Great length. He allows us to be able to play small ball.”
Not that UConn-Georgetown at Gampel needs anything extra, but this go-around will be interesting, indeed.
More in your Sunday Read:
Healing visit for Fitch Family, Coast Guard Academy
Harrison “Honey” Fitch, UConn’s first African-American basketball player, was not allowed to take the court for a game at Coast Guard in 1934, a story the Courant told in February 2021. The story of the incident made an impression on Admiral Bill Kelly, superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, who later wrote to Fitch’s son with a heartfelt apology and invited him to visit.
Fitch said he was “skeptical,” and suspected it might be just a public relations move, but after researching the USCGA and consulting with family and people with the UConn foundation, he eventually accepted the invitation.
“This was really an opportunity for us to look at our history, reflect and say ‘This is not who we are as an institution today,” Kelly said. “And then we made a move to reach out and see if they were willing to engage with us. He’s a great man. He didn’t want to spend any more energy with someone who was just paying lip service.”
Harrison Brooks Fitch
Jr. and his wife spent a full day, Oct. 19, at the USCGA. They met with the men’s and women’s basketball teams, faculty, staff and cadets. It was determined there were areas where the Coast Guard Academy and UConn Foundation’s Harrison Fitch Leadership Fund could work together to enhance both organization’s programs.
“Both my wife and I were very, very impressed and very overwhelmed,” Fitch said. “Looking at who they are and what they want to do, it was clear that the letter was not just a P.R. letter. It really was sincere outreach and as a result, we really had substantive talks.”
Joint endeavors will include development of a new leadership curriculum regarding the USCGA/ Harrison “Honey” Fitch story, a keynote speaking engagement between Fitch and Kelly at the Academy’s flagship diversity and inclusion event in the spring of 2023, as well as other athletic- and leadership-focused activities to benefit the community.
“That visit really changed the dynamic,” Fitch said. “There are going to be things we’re going to be doing for cadets, students, helping young people have some experiences that can change their lives, in Hartford, New Haven and New London, particularly.”
Honey Fitch, who died in 1984, became a member of the Huskies of Honor at Gampel Pavilion last season. These recent developments in the nearly 90-year-old story show that good things can happen when we confront history, even painful history, rather than ignore or deny it.
“[The visit] was not just healing, but uplifting. The uplift part, we’re not just acknowledging something, we’re doing something. And that is very satisfying,” Fitch said.
“Sports is such an integral part of what we do here,” Kelly said. “That this was a sports-related event [in 1934] impacted me, and it also impacted our student-athletes. Our most diverse team was our men’s basketball team. They knew the story, read the story, so I not only needed to make a commitment to Mr. Fitch, but I needed to make a commitment to my institution that we were going to learn from this and not let it define us.”
Sunday short takes
◼ UConn trustees approved a plan to replace the floor at Gampel Pavilion, which has been used since the building opened in 1990 and is now too thin to be sanded and resurfaced, at a cost of $688,000. AD David Benedict said, via Twitter, that he expects pieces of the old floor to be made available for collectors, inevitable in today’s memorabilia marketplace. Wouldn’t it be great they can pinpoint the spots from which famous shots were taken, like Shabazz Napier’s game-winner vs. Florida or Sue Bird’s against Notre Dame.
◼ Bobby Hurley, the Arizona State coach, got his win over Creighton this week. His brother’s next try is Jan. 7 at Storrs.
◼ Some good men’s basketball being played at the Division III level around here. Saint Joseph’s (9-0) is ranked second in the latest D-III poll. WesConn (8-0) is among others receiving votes. Trinity won its first nine before losing this week.
Last word
A bit of the state’s sporting history was lost in the fire in Rockville this week. A building destroyed on Brooklyn Street was once home to Tober baseballs, “guaranteed to last 18 innings,” which were widely used and considered high quality. Meyer Tober, who came from Russia, began making sporting goods in the Hartford area early in the 20th Century, finally locating the plant in Rockville in 1955. Nine years later, Tober, 82, was murdered there by an employee, and Tober’s sons closed the business in the early 1970s. The story sent me to eBay, where I found a Tober baseball from the late 1950s, great, sharp logo, in its original box and signed by Hall of Famer Bob Feller, who once reminded me he spent a lot of time in Hartford learning the insurance business . ... Had to have it.