On Monday night, I wrote a column detailing why I believed this year’s Georgetown Hoyas belonged in the NCAA tournament. Yes, they’ve lost to some bad teams, I wrote, and their record isn’t great, but they have wins over potential #1 seeds Connecticut and Memphis, and they’ve maintained a top-40 RPI while playing a murderous Big East schedule. If they simply beat St. John’s and DePaul to end the regular season and put up a decent showing at the Big East tournament next week, there’s no way the Hoyas won’t be dancing, I reasoned.
I thought the season’s last two games would be easy victories, believing that the prospect of March Madness would energize our inconsistent young players and help them beat just a few inferior teams to show the selection committee that they were ready for the big stage. I thought our veterans would play their hearts out, unwilling to let their season end with an ignominious berth in the NIT after two straight regular-season Big East championships. I thought, in short, that the Georgetown basketball program we know and love would show up for just two games to grab an at-large berth into the tourney
I thought wrong.
On Tuesday night, the Hoyas suffered a heartbreaking overtime loss to St. John’s, blowing a 15-point lead in the last 10 minutes of the game. The devastating defeat could be blamed on any number of things: the jumper DaJuan Summers missed at the end of regulation, the shot he bricked at the end of overtime, and the six points the Hoyas left at the free throw line down the stretch all could have stymied the Red Storm’s late-game resurgence.
The truth? St. John’s just played harder. Meaty reserve forward Rob Thomas and his Red Storm teammates jumped around, over, and through the Hoyas, collecting 42 rebounds to Georgetown’s 22. This physical dominance overshadowed the Red Storm’s otherwise poor performance; St. John’s shot only 36 percent from the floor and committed 19 turnovers, looking every bit the inferior team for the first 30 minutes of the game. But they made all the right plays down the stretch, ripping rebounds away from Hoyas, diving for loose balls, and making their free throws.
This atomic meltdown is probably the last nail in the coffin of the Hoyas’ tournament aspirations. Even if Georgetown is miraculously granted a berth in the Big Dance, what indication is there that they’ll be able to play well for the entire game? In all likelihood, the team will fold early in the Big East tournament and go on to the meager consolation prize that is the NIT. For a school just two seasons removed from playing for a spot in the national title game, this season’s promising beginnings and repeated failures are understandably frustrating and humiliating, demonstrating just how much last year’s team relied on its truly great senior class.
But this season’s disappointments are no reason for fans to hang their heads. This year’s Big East has been called the strongest conference ever, currently featuring no fewer than six top-25 teams and another (West Virginia) that’s a lock to make the tournament. This season was supposed to be a rebuilding year—John Thompson III is a great coach, but even he can’t be expected to mold so many young and incomplete players into winners in the jungle of the Big East. Their record isn’t great, but with almost a year of conference play under their belts, Greg Monroe and his talented freshmen class can’t be considered rookies anymore—and that’s good news for next year.
