A long-awaited return to the Final Four, the first 30-win season since 1985, and the first Big East Tournament Championship since 1989. If last year was any indication, John Thompson III’s Georgetown basketball reclamation project has been a success, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to the current Hoya coaches or players. Last year is right where it should be: in the past.
“Last year is done,” Thompson said. “So, now we have this year’s group. This is a totally different group with different strengths and different weaknesses and different players.”
“We need to forget everything that happened last year,” senior captain Jonathan Wallace said. “We need to get back to square one and do what we do best, play Georgetown basketball.”
From square one or not, there are high expectations for a team that ended last season on an 8-1 run. With success comes respect, and Georgetown has received its fair share heading into the 101st season of Hoya Hoops. Both the AP and ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll have the Blue and Gray ranked No. 5 before they’ve even hit the court, with the Hoyas notching one vote for first place in the writer’s poll.
“The rankings are what they are,” sophomore DaJuan Summers said. You still need to come out and play the game … [so] I don’t think it’s that important.”
“No one outside this gym determines what we do,” senior captain Patrick Ewing Jr. added. “[They] can expect whatever [they] want, but I’m pretty sure our expectations in here are higher than anyone’s out there. We want to be a perfect team.”
The players that hope to make that perfection a reality and seal Georgetown’s return to glory with the school’s second national title are led by senior stalwarts Wallace and Roy Hibbert. Hibbert, the intimidating 7’2” presence in the paint, was named the Big East’s Preseason Player of the Year while the 6’1” Wallace joined him as one of the 11 players voted to the preseason all-Big East team.
The preseason accolades don’t stop with Big East coaches who see the two starters on a consistent basis. Both are top-50 preseason candidates for the Men’s 2007-2008 John R. Wooden Award, the nation’s most coveted individual college basketball prize. Georgetown joins UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina and Washington State as the only schools to boast two candidates on the list.
“It makes me feel like I worked to where I am now and I’m just going to have to keep working,” Hibbert said of the recognition. “When I came into college nobody knew who I was and no one knew who Georgetown was.”
“He’s going to catch a lot of double and triple teams from our opponents,” Ewing Jr. said of his senior teammate. “That just leaves everybody else open. And he also clogs up the lane in the paint so it’s going to be a tough time for every team trying to play with us.”
Hibbert and Wallace make up a dynamic inside-outside combination that has garnered attention after last year’s March Madness run. Hibbert was second on the team in scoring last year with 12.9 points per game and led the team in rebounding (6.9) and blocks (2.43), but passed up a chance to be a NBA lottery pick to quest for that elusive title and solidify his place in the pantheon of Georgetown big men. The previously overlooked Wallace returns to the Hoyas for his fourth year, having started every game since his freshman year and considered one of the country’s premier floor generals.
Despite the return of Georgetown’s two most reliable threats, the Hoyas must find a way to win without Big East Player of the Year and the No. 5 pick in last June’s NBA Draft, Jeff Green. Many predict sophomores DaJuan Summers and Vernon Macklin can fill that void and exploit opposing players focusing on Hibbert. In the past, Coach Thompson’s players have experienced large improvements between their first-year and sophomore campaigns as they hone their understanding of the intricacies of the Princeton Offense. Georgetown is especially looking to have a breakout season from Summers, a Big East All-Rookie selection last year and the fourth-leading scorer on the team (9.2).
“Both [Green and Summers] resemble each other in the way they play up-tempo and are very active,” Wallace said. “[we] shouldn’t have to make that big of an adjustment.”
“It’s not so much replacing Jeff,” Summers said. “But I’ve been watching a lot of his game tape and seeing the things he was doing, the things he brings to the table. Whatever it is the team needs me to do, that’s what my agenda is.”
The team also brings in a fresh crop of recruits, highlighted by McDonald’s All-Americans Austin Freeman and Chris Wright. Freeman, a 6’ 4” guard from nearby DeMatha High School in Maryland averaged 21.1 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists last year. Wright, like Freeman, is a local product hailing from St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C. The 6’4” guard’s smooth stroke and lightning-quick speed made him the first three-time All-Met selection since the 1970s. Both should provide valuable minutes off the bench.
Freeman and Wright are joined by first-years Omar Wattad and Nikita Mescheriakov. Wattad is a 6’ 6” guard/forward from Tennessee, a two-time all-state selection and regional most valuable player, as well as his school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,191 points. Mescheriakov is another one of Coach Thompson’s local recruits, hailing from St. John’s Prospect Hall in Maryland. The 6’ 8”, 200 pounds, Mescheriakov’s 14.4 points and 4.4 rebounds per game garnered him honorable mention in the Washington Post All-Met honors.
The four new freshmen will look to supplement an outstanding core of returning players who have had time to learn and develop Thompson’s offensive system. Joining Wallace in the starting backcourt is junior guard Jessie Sapp, who averaged 9.1 points, 4.0 rebounds and led the team with 3.46 assists per game. Wallace and Sapp will be spelled by the senior leadership of captain Tyler Crawford and defensive prowess of sophomore Jeremiah Rivers.
Hibbert will be the center of the Hoyas’ offense this season, but he is not alone in the frontcourt. Along with Summers, Georgetown boasts the energetic senior captain Patrick Ewing Jr., who emerged as a valuable sixth man for the Hoyas last season and provided spark off the bench with massive dunks and tenacious defense. Sophomore Vernon Macklin, a former McDonald’s All-American, should also see an increased role with one year on the Hilltop under his belt. A 6’9”, 210-pound forward, Macklin’s athleticism and his unique combination of size and speed will be key in giving the Hoyas a different look on the floor with or without Hibbert alongside.
A team with this much talent and this much depth has pundits picking the Hoyas to make a return trip to the Final Four, but Georgetown knows nothing comes easy in perhaps the most competitive conference in the country, the Big East. The Hoyas can expect to take their opponent’s best shot every time they hit the floor, including a date with No. 3 Memphis on Dec. 22 and two games against No. 6 Louisville, who were picked along with Georgetown by the league’s coaches to take home the Big East crown.
“There was never a doubt in our minds that we can play with anybody,” Ewing Jr. said. “But they want to know if they can play against us. We are definitely a confident team just for that fact alone.”
“There’s no way we are sneaking under the radar with teams now,” Wallace said. “People are going to prepare for us a lot better. We just have to stay focused on what we know how to do, prepare for games the way we know how to prepare for them. We have to be consistent in what we do.”
In four short years, the Hoyas have gone from a sub-.500 team to championship favorites and have caused a surge of support on campus and off. It’s only four days until Georgetown tips off toward San Antonio with the hopes of raising the school’s first championship banner since 1984. On Nov. 10 at the Verizon Center against William & Mary, the Hoyas will look to put aside the hype, end months of anxious anticipation and start something special.
“We can win it,” Ewing Jr. said of this year’s team. “We didn’t win it last year. That’s the goal this year … We want to win it all.”
