The final weeks of fall mark the end of what has been a very tough season for Georgetown sports. The fall teams have not had the success that many had hoped for, and it is safe to say that the losing records have taken their toll not just on the athletes, but the fans as well.
To be fair, the Hoya Hooligans showed up for each men’s and women’s soccer game to bombard the referees and opposing teams with their chants, and Georgetown students battled the cold in force to add their support to a fourth quarter comeback by the football team to end the season on Homecoming. Nevertheless, from intramurals on Kehoe to exams in the ICC, the competitive-by-nature Georgetown students do not exactly embrace losing. As players and fans alike fought through the grueling Big East season, all were able to fall back on one standard mantra: Just wait until basketball season.
Well, basketball season is here, and these high expectations do not start and stop in the nation’s capital. A heartbreaking overtime loss in the Sweet Sixteen to eventual champions Florida, coupled with the return of a certain seven-footer, has turned national attention to Hoya basketball. Preseason polls have rated Georgetown as high as eighth in the nation and second in the sport’s most dominant conference. No pressure. It is comforting to know that the players have the very same lofty goals for themselves.
“We expect ourselves to win the whole thing,” junior center Roy Hibbert said. “We’ve been working hard, and we expect nothing less.”
Hibbert and junior forward Jeff Green make up a dynamic duo that has garnered national attention after last year’s March Madness run. Green, who led the team in scoring with 11.9 points a game last year, has been hailed as one of the best offensive players in the Big East. Hibbert, who averaged 11.6 points and just under seven boards a game last year, is recognized nationally as one of the country’s strongest and most improved centers.
“If people don’t pay attention to us, we’re going to hurt them down low,” Hibbert said of playing with Green. “I feed off of Jeff. Jeff feeds off of me. I don’t know if they can stop both of us.”
With this returning offensive threat, it may be easy to make the mistake of forgetting about what the team has lost.
“You can talk about the scoring, but just as important we lost just about all of our perimeter passing,” Head Coach John Thompson III said of last year’s seniors. “We lost our best perimeter defenders. We lost a lot when you’re talking about Ashanti [Cook], D.J. [Darrel Owens] and Brandon [Bowman]. So we need different players to step up.”
These holes on the perimeter, both defensive and offensive, will put a heavy burden on Hibbert and Green, who are sure to face a fair share of double-teams down low this year. The one to help lift this burden will be junior guard Jonathan Wallace, the anchor of Georgetown’s solid but oft-overlooked backcourt.
“He [Wallace] has had the luxury of being just the other guy out there,” he said. “Now, that’s not the case, so we’re going to need him to be a lot more aggressive and assertive.”
Wallace will not be alone in the new backcourt, and the guards on this squad think they can prove their doubters wrong.
“The guards are going to step up in situations where we’re needed, make plays, make things happen, lead the team and hit shots,” Wallace said. “We’re going to play our role, let those guys [Hibbert and Green] do their thing and just create a balance.”
“Our frontcourt is one of the best in the country, and me, Jon [Wallace], Tyler [Crawford], Jeremiah [Rivers] and Marc [Egerson] … we just need to work hard everyday,” sophomore guard Jessie Sapp added. “We really can play with the best of them. We need to hope to improve throughout the season and become better.”
Wallace won’t be the only one looking to take the pressure off of Green and Hibbert. Thompson spent the off-season collecting three very talented recruits. Vernon Macklin, Jeremiah Rivers and DaJuan Summers will all look to get playing time this season. Macklin, a 6’9” forward, is a McDonald’s All-American who averaged 20 points and 15 rebounds a game for Hargrave Military Academy last year. Rivers, son of former NBA player and current Boston Celtics Head Coach Glenn “Doc” Rivers, hails from Winter Park, FL, where he averaged 13.6 points per game and was named first team All-Metro and All-Central Florida. DaJuan Summers, a 6’ 8” forward, was the Baltimore County Player of the Year and averaged nearly 30 points and 11 rebounds in his senior year at McDonough School.
This season also marks the eligibility of Patrick Ewing Jr., who sat out last season because of NCAA transfer regulations. The son of the Georgetown University and New York Knicks great, Ewing looks to help the team in any way possible this season.
“I’m not a shy guy,” Ewing said. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes for us to win. If coach wants me to sit another year out for us to win, that’s what I will do. If coach wants me to try to get twenty rebounds a game, then that is what I am going to try to do. I like to get down and play some defense. I’m not afraid of contact. I’m just looking forward to bringing that to the floor.”
Needless to say, Thompson certainly has the talent to make a deep tournament run in the 2006-07 basketball season. As with all things in the Big East, however, it is not going to be easy. The Hoyas will hit all the powerhouses of the Big East in conference play, including Louisville, Syracuse, Connecticut and two games each against Pittsburgh and Villanova. Other schedule highlights include an early match-up against Vanderbilt, a game at Michigan and of course a trip to face the Duke Blue Devils in front of the candy-striped crazies of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
When asked the question of where the team stands at this point in time, Coach Thompson offered only a short and indefinite response.
“We haven’t lost a game yet, but we haven’t won one either,” he said.
This may be true enough, but with the opening game against Hartford only days away, the Hoya nation may be craving a little more certainty. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that wherever the basketball team stands at this moment, they do not stand alone. Basketball fever is sweeping this campus. More and more Georgetown basketball posters are adorning residence hall common rooms. Students watch all over campus as Roy Hibbert ducks under doorway after doorway, all the while feeling sorry for the poor opposing guards who will drive the lane against him this year. The sixth-man is coming together at Georgetown, thousands strong, ready to lay blue and gray claim to the Verizon Center.
Tradition is the theme of this year, the 100th of Georgetown’s illustrious history of basketball. Having a Ewing and a Thompson together at the century mark of Georgetown basketball is almost too appropriate. It’s the kind of story that will draw nationwide attention. But here on the Hilltop, attention is turning more and more into an obsession with each passing day. Only days remain before the opening game on Saturday. The opening tip-off will mark the end of months of anticipation, a century of tradition and quite possibly the beginning of something very, very special.
