After defeating Jacksonville on Monday night, head coach John Thompson III seemed pleased to start the season off with a win. But he had much more to say about what displeased him.
“I thought that in the first half and then again in the second half we took too many threes,” he said. “At the defensive end, a lot of the rotations and a lot of the slides, we weren’t where we should be.”
Some of his criticisms were all too familiar.
“To give up 19 offensive rebounds is unacceptable,” he warned. “If you’re looking for one thing that disappointed, it’s that.”
You can be sure that the players have been hearing all that and more this week in practice as they prepare to take on Drexel this Saturday.
Fortunately for the Hoyas, they face another outmatched team on Saturday. Coming off a 12-20 record last season, Drexel is embarking on a rebuilding campaign. In the preseason, the team was picked to finish last in the Colonial Athletic Association.
But the Dragons got off to a good start this year, defeating crosstown rival Penn 66-64 on Tuesday. The team is led by two seniors in the backcourt, Scott Rodgers and Tramayne Hawthorne. Both are adept on defense, and Hawthorne is also a dangerous long range shooter, having made 81 threes last season.
Georgetown hopes to counter the Dragons’ defense with improved shot selection. After going 5-for-23 from behind the arc against Jacksonville, the Hoyas will be more selective on offense.
“We don’t really know all the looks we need to get or how to get the looks,” junior forward DaJuan Summers said. “We’ve just got to get used to the flow of the game.”
Expect the inexperienced Hoyas to do a better job of that with a game under their belts, but don’t be surprised to see more learning being done on the court. Thompson used all ten of his scholarship players on Monday and is still figuring out exactly how his new team will fit together.
In the meantime, Georgetown will take production wherever it can get it, though expect it mainly from the veterans on Saturday. All three returning starters had solid games against Jacksonville and should remain consistent, though it was sophomore guard Chris Wright and freshman center Greg Monroe who led the team in scoring in their first-ever starts on Monday, heralding the great potential of the younger Hoyas.
“We just have to figure out how that group is going to grow and continue to get better,” Thompson said. “We want to be by the end of the year the most improved team in the country.”
