Senior guard Jessie Sapp arrived at Georgetown near the end of what might charitably be called a rebuilding period. His January 2005 commitment came partway through John Thompson III’s first year as head coach, a season that began without rank or expectation and ended in the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament. Craig Esherick’s thirteen wins the year before were the fewest since 1974, and the squad that Sapp and fellow recruits Tay Spann, Marc Egerson, and Josh Thornton were set to join lacked the sense of pride and tradition that had characterized Georgetown during its dominant years in the 1980s. Only the strong freshman class of future Hoya stars Roy Hibbert, Jeff Green ,and Jon Wallace hinted at what was to come. When Sapp and the 2005-2006 Georgetown squad stepped onto the court for the first time, it was a sign that Hoya basketball was back; after a decade of appearing in the National Invitational Tournament, the team would go to three NCAA tournaments over the next three years.
It would have been easy for Sapp to feel overshadowed by the naturally gifted Green and fan favorites Hibbert and Wallace. Indeed, classmate Thornton transferred to Towson University in the fall of 2006, Egerson departed midseason for Delaware, and Spann departed for Marshall over the summer of 2008. But instead of getting frustrated after a freshman season in which he recorded 2.8 points and just under two rebounds in sixteen minutes per game, Sapp saw an opportunity for growth. With the help of older bench players Sead Dizdarevic `07 and Kenny Izzo `07, Sapp, who didn’t play organized basketball until the eleventh grade, earned a starting spot the next season and averaged 9.1 points and four boards a game. Today, Sapp is considered by many to be one of the elite guards in the Big East, but he is quick to give credit to his older teammates.
“Even though those guys didn’t play as much as everyone else, they still knew the game,” he said. “From day one, I’ve learned from every person that’s been here.”
That will to learn and succeed has served Sapp well during his time at Georgetown, a time in which the program has risen from mediocrity to Big East supremacy. But even after back-to-back Big East regular season championships, Sapp stressed the need to stay focused, especially with 18 conference games against teams from the much-improved Big East. A particular source of inspiration is the second-round loss to Davidson in last year’s NCAA Tournament, a game that Sapp compares to spilt milk.
“We have to come into the season with a different mindset than we did last year,” he said. “Obviously we didn’t get where we wanted to be last year, but you can’t think about the past.”
In tiny McDonough Gymnasium, however, the past is hard to escape. It lives on in the wall of jerseys displaying the numbers of every Hoya drafted to the NBA, and in the thirty-five banners hung from the rafters, one for every NIT and NCAA appearance. Both displays weigh heavily on Sapp’s mind. Despite all that he’s accomplished over the last three years, he will likely be best remembered for whatever happens under his captaincy this season. It will be his last chance to bring home an elusive national championship and make his case for following Hibbert and Green to the NBA.
In order to prepare for his final season, Sapp stuck to the ethic of hard work that brought him to Georgetown in the first place, spending more time over the summer lifting weights and doing more cardio than ever before. Just as important as the physical training is the psychological preparation to make the switch from an effective role player under Green, Hibbert, and Wallace, to captain of a team that’s returning only two upperclassmen. In order to captain Georgetown to a fourth consecutive berth in the NCAA tournament, Sapp will have to help acclimate the team’s five new players both to Thompson’s Princeton offense and to the pressures of playing for a perennial competitor like Georgetown. Sapp welcomes the challenge and praised the freshmen for their willingness to learn.
“[Greg Monroe] didn’t come in here with the mentality that ‘I’m Greg Monroe and people know who I am,'” he said. “He came here to learn about what he has to do to make us a better team. Henry [Sims] came in here with the same attitude, and people will find out who Jason Clark is real soon. I was a freshman once, and you just can’t be afraid to make mistakes. They have that in their heads and they’ll be fine.”
And what does the final season hold for Sapp himself? He laughed off any suggestion that there might be games this year, against defending Big East Champion Pittsburgh, rivals Syracuse, Duke, or anyone else, for which he’s preparing specially.
“We just take it one game at a time,” he said. “The next game on the schedule, that’s the game we have to win. We look at everybody, everybody, as a team to beat.”
