Before leaving Beijing, the Georgetown team and Bayi players met to exchange apologies and parted company on friendlier terms. Boosted by the infamy of the brawl in Beijing, Georgetown's next game, played in Shanghai, was a hot ticket, and Chinese officials and security personnel kept tight control of the game and the crowd to ensure that nothing untoward happened. Georgetown won both games in Shanghai without any additional controversy, and Hoya coaches and players spent time at a special basketball clinic for Chinese youth, finishing the trip on a positive note. A little less than three months after returning from China, Georgetown began the 2011–12 season with two easy wins at the Verizon Center. In the first, over a Savannah State team coached by former Hoya player Horace Broadnax, Henry Sims came off the bench to score a game-high and career-high 19 points and Hollis Thompson added 13, while Otto Porter grabbed a game-high eight rebounds. The second win was in a game played at the Verizon Center as part of the "Opening Round" of the Maui Invitational Tournament, a newly established round of play in which four teams headed for the tournament on Maui played at home against four mid-major teams which would remain in the Mainland United States to compete with one another in a parallel tournament of their own while the Maui-bound teams played the main tournament in Hawaii. Georgetown's opening-round opponent was UNC Greensboro, and in defeating the Spartans Hollis Thompson scored a game-high 19 points, Jason Clark scored 17 off the bench, and Markel Starks also came off the bench for the first double-digit scoring performance of his collegiate career, adding 11 points. Georgetown then traveled to Lahaina, Hawaii, for the Maui Invitational Tournament proper, facing No. 14 Kansas, the young Georgetown team's first serious challenge, in the first round. Both teams got off to poor offensive starts; the Jayhawks missed eight of their first 12 shots and the Hoyas did not score for the first 3 minutes 52 seconds and hit only four of their first 15 shots. Down 6-0 before their first field goal, the Hoyas came back to take a 12–9 lead with 10:54 left in the half, then fell behind again before tying the game at 19–19 with 8:36 left. After that, Kansas pulled away to a 32–26 lead before the Hoyas again closed the gap, and the Jayhawks went to the locker room at halftime clinging to a 37–35 lead.