I remember about two and a half years ago standing on Harbin Field for our Class of 2008 picture during Freshman Orientation and seeing Jon Wallace, Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green standing there. They were the freshman basketball stars, one from Alabama and two local talents. I had never heard of any of them.
“At least those two are pretty big,” I thought.
Little did I know how big they would become on the Hilltop. This past Sunday, in just three years’ time, they achieved the dream of every college basketball player and fan by claiming the last spot in the Final Four. Sunday night was complete ecstasy for every Hoya. The star trio led Georgetown in an upset of offensive juggernaut North Carolina. A team with six former McDonald’s All-Americans collapsed to a team led by three players who were relative `no-names’ coming into college.
Wallace has always been the solid point guard that no Hoya could complain about. But in the past three years he has become much more than that. Calm and comfortable under pressure, he rarely misses the big shots. This year every analyst in the country pegged Georgetown’s guard play as our Achilles’ heel. Funny how things work out. Wallace and Jessie Sapp combined to go 5-8 from behind the arc against UNC. As Wallace’s final three rattled in to send the game into overtime, I’m sure Dick Vitale had a heart attack.
We all knew Roy needed some work on his footwork and mobility after his freshman year. Last year, he showed immense amounts of improvement and this year he even graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and the box scores with his dominant presence in the paint. Hibbert battled against another of the best big men in the country on Sunday, Tyler Hansbrough. Although Hansbrough dominated with 26 points and 11 boards, Roy kept him in check in the second half and didn’t foul out, which seemed bound to happen after his first foul in the opening minute of the contest. Where was Hansbrough when it counted most? Defenseless on the floor while DaJuan Summers leapt over him for an exclamation-point dunk in overtime.
Then there’s Jeff. Since showing up in braids freshman year, he’s always been a fan favorite (or at least his mom has). Many describe Green as a player who fits perfectly in the Georgetown system. Hoya fans won’t argue with that, but we also always knew there was greater potential behind our selfless star. Come tournament-time this year, that potential blossomed as he showed he could score 20+ at will and still play within the Georgetown offense. The Big East Player of the Year carried us through our conference tournament and hit a miraculous game-winner against Vanderbilt in the Sweet Sixteen.
Players like these are hard to come by in college basketball these days, since stars like Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are expected to leave after one year. I feel bad for fans in Austin and Columbus, whose cries for one more year are most likely to fall on deaf ears and who won’t get to witness their hard-court heroes develop. Schools like UNC will lose some of their All-Americans and then replenish their stock only to lose those after a year or two. Georgetown’s stars, however, have been in school for three years and many if not all of them will leave here after four seasons with a Georgetown degree.
The new NCAA rule that prevents basketball players from going directly to the NBA has made for an exciting year. It’s hard to argue that Durant and Oden are ready to make the move to professional basketball after their required year of college, but for the fans, the greatest athletes are those who stay for the entire college experience and mature with the student supporters that love them.
