When this year’s senior class came to campus in 2008, the Georgetown men’s basketball team was only a season removed from its fifth NCAA Final Four appearance and hailing the arrival of highly touted forward Greg Monroe, ranked one of the best freshmen in the country. But three years later, Monroe has left campus for the NBA, and the team has not won a postseason tournament game. The team has only an outside shot at qualifying for the NCAA Tournament in 2012. While there are plenty of guilty parties in the program’s recent struggles, the lion’s share of the blame for the Hoyas’ underperformance lies with one man: head coach John Thompson III.
Since appearing in the 2007 Final Four, Thompson’s teams have consistently been highly ranked throughout the regular season, only to suffer embarrassing losses in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament. The past four years have seen season-ending upsets at the hands of Davidson, Baylor (in the NIT), 14-seed Ohio, and 11-seed Virginia Commonwealth. For every high-profile win, there is a first-round flame-out or a five-game losing streak. Faced with adversity—a hot-shooting underdog, or unfriendly referees—Thompson’s teams crumble all too often. Letting inferior teams dictate the pace and style of play (as Georgetown did in last year’s loss to VCU) is suggestive of a poorly coached team.
There is no question that the recruiting classes Thompson has brought to Georgetown have been talented. But he has done nothing with that talent, other than a couple of regular season upsets—the most important players on his Final Four team were recruited by his predecessor Craig Esherick. Moreover, star players like Jeff Green and Greg Monroe have left Georgetown with years of eligibility left. Other bench-bound role players, such as Jeremiah Rivers and Vernon Macklin, have transferred away and found success at other programs. Thompson’s inability to keep his best players is a testament to his teams’ frustrating underperformance and to his own failures as a coach.
Thompson has had some regular-season success in recent years, putting his teams consistently in the mix of the top 25 programs in the country. But a college basketball team’s goal is to win postseason games, something Thompson has not been able to do with his own players. Being the son of the man who created Hoya basketball from the ground up is an appealing narrative, but it is no reason to ignore consistent shortcomings and disappointments. Thompson cannot be given a lifetime pass to underperform. If things end poorly for the Hoyas this season, fans must think with their minds, not their hearts, and hold the man in charge responsible for the team’s performance.
We have been, as you say, consistently in the mix of the top 25 programs in the country. We win a lot. We have lost a lot — some of the losses being surprising and therefore quite disappointing. Are you so jaded that being consistently ranked in the Top 25 is not excitement of its own? We are ranked there often because we often deserve it. Are not the games against the great teams that we play and often beat exciting?
“But a college basketball team’s goal is to win postseason games,…”
I was graduated in 1984. I know exactly what it feels like to win the big one. We went to the finals 3 times in 4 years. I can honestly say that I have been to many games at Verizon since then that have been just as exciting and heart pounding. (Stipulate that, to me, victories over Syracuse and Duke are always more exciting than winning the NCAA Tournament.)
And of course the goal is to win post-season games. Every team in our conference aspires to win the Big East Tournament and then the NCAA title. In fact, every team of every sport shoots to be the ultimate victor and champion. But that does not mean that every team is a failure when they do not do so.
Maybe it is JTIII’s “fault,” maybe it is isn’t. We do not get to have a counter example. Perhaps, for whatever reason, we would have won far fewer with another coach.
But if you feel that way (that winning lots of games in the post season is the ultimate goal) good luck with your excitement if the Big East itself vanishes or we choose to leave it for different pastures. You may have to either adjust to a new standard of excitement or spend your time wistful over the days when JTIII had us consistently as one of the Top 25 teams in the country.
How does the team only have an outside shot of making the tourney this season? Last time I checked our record was 0-0? This isn’t the BCS were pre-season rankings determine who plays for the national championship.
Also JT3 recruited Jon Wallace, Jessie Sapp, and Patrick Ewing Jr (who wouldn’t play under Esherick), and convinced Jeff Green to stay with Georgetown. Hibbert was going to play at Georgetown, no matter who the coach was. JT3 has has some recent disappointments but lets not oversell the story he took Esherick’s team to the Final 4. Esherick couldn’t even take his own guys to the NCAA Tourney.
This may be the first article in The Voice that I’ve ever agreed with. This season and post-season is especially important as winning in the Big East may not mean anything in the not-so-distant future. I sense some newly found toughness and leadership developing with this current team, so let’s these were the missing ingredients. Can’t wait to see!
What success did Jeremiah Rivers have at Indiana during his two years with the Hoosiers? His teams went a combined 22-41 over two seasons. If that’s success then JT3 has been doing just fine. And Rivers averaged 4pts, 3rbs, 2asts, and 1 stl in 22 mins per game his senior year. I love the kid’s effort but his transfer did not hurt the team. Macklin is another story.
I think we can all agree that we would like to see more wins in the post season from our men’s basketball team. But it wasn’t that long ago where the program was consistently out of both the top 25 and the NCAA tournament. Expectations have changed because of JT3. And that’s a good thing.
The inability to retain talent is a more serious offense than not winning NCAA-games, in several ways.
Recruiting successfully incorporates identifying talents individuals who can succeed within both the program and the university, setting realistic expectations regarding their planned contributions, and re-evaluating and adjusting their role so it is optimal for them, at the university and within the program.
It is a dangerous thing to say, but if a recruit cannot succeed within the academic program and the university community, he should not be recruited. That assessment means evaluating his academic potential and his emotional maturity for meeting the very difficult and maybe impossible student-athlete challenges.
The worst performance for the Hoya’s program, going back over the past twenty-five years, is the number of talented basketball players who do not graduate. This trend has worsened since Iverson as Victor Paige, Mike Sweetney, Jeff Green, DaJuan Summers, Vernon Macklin, Jeremiah Rivers, and others pack up early and take their careers to the professional level, a failed or abbreviated attempt at the professional level, or another collegiate career. The real reasons aren’t known, but before Iverson that highest-draft picks remained for four years at Georgetown and we at least believed that expectation was established when they were recruited.
The number of poor outcomes, if measured simply by departures prior to graduation, is increasing. Some of these negative outcomes have approached the tragic level (as do some of the program’s graduates admittedly), but I believe the university itself assumes a high level of responsibility when it asks an 18 year old to come, represent it in a very public capacity and manage very demanding academic and athletic obligations to be assured that the recruit is willing and capable of succeeding in the program that is there.