The big man is back and he’s better than ever

He’s back.

To the delight of the Hoya faithful, Greg Monroe passed up NBA millions to return to the Hilltop for his sophomore season. He passed up a likely place as a lottery pick, an opportunity that many in his position would jump at. But Monroe doesn’t just want an opportunity to play professionally. He wants to succeed at the next level.

“You have a lot of players—good, bad, right, or wrong—that you know that the first opportunity that they have to be drafted that they’re going to leave,” head coach John Thompson III said. “This is how some people are—not judging them.

“Greg is not one of those people. I’ve always said he’s honest; he can look in the mirror and say that, ‘I need to improve. There are some things I can get better at.’ He has goals and desires not just to be in the league, not just to be a professional basketball player, but to be a good one.”

So Monroe ventured out this summer to work on the points of his game that needed the most improvement. And he feels like he’s a lot better now than he was at the end of last season.

“I think the thing that’s going to be the most different is me knowing what’s going to happen after last season,” Monroe said. “You know, I’ve been here a year. I think that’s going to pay huge dividends for me going down the stretch and how I need to prepare … and me knowing what’s coming, I can prepare better for it.”

Monroe can definitely build on some of the lessons he learned—both the good and the bad—in the first full season as a collegiate player.

Last January, Monroe and the Hoyas had a performance for the ages in a 74-63 dismantling of then undefeated and second-ranked Connecticut. At the time, the sun seemed to be shining down on the Hoyas, and nothing could get in their way.

The sun set quickly. Pittsburgh’s DeJuan Blair and Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody showed the Hoyas that while Monroe was great, he wasn’t immortal. In the two following games, Blair dropped 20 points and 17 rebounds and Harangody added 31 and 11 against the freshman. The Hoyas lost both games, and their sky-high expectations began the long fall back to the Hilltop.

This year, Monroe will be more prepared for the bruising style of play in the Big East.  He spent part of his summer working on his game at the Amare Stoudemire Camp in Phoenix, being critiqued by NBA Hall of Famers, while playing against some of the other best big men in the country. That—along with a summer of weight training that has furnished Monroe with a leaner, stronger physique—has Monroe confident he will be strong all year round.

“[In] this league, everyone has two or three big men,” Monroe said. “The wear and tear is going to take a toll. Being able to have that strength and being able to have it down the stretch is very important.”

But Monroe has worked on more than just his physique. Despite shooting 57.2 percent from the field last season, he’s improved his mid-range shooting and post moves. He also worked on extending his ability to shoot with his right hand from the mid-range and closer, just to give him more options.

More importantly, Monroe still has the desire to do the thing he does best: pass.

“I think I’ve always been a good passer,” Monroe said. “I don’t know where it came from, but … passing is something that you just have to want to do. It’s something you can’t really learn, you can’t really practice. You just have to be aware and [have it be] something that you want to do and something that you look to do.”

Monroe’s uncanny passing ability is the crux of Georgetown’s Princeton offense, facilitating the system’s constant backdoor cuts, motion, and passing. And he refuses to believe that scoring is all that matters.

“I think in basketball right now, the main focus is scoring,” Monroe said. “People are getting so good at scoring that they’re doing a lot of things … people are starting to overlook a lot of different aspects of the game that are still very important. I think that passing is a little bit underrated right now.”

Still, with the Hoyas disappointing finish last year—and the departure of the team’s leading scorer, DaJuan Summers—Monroe will need to become more aggressive and take a larger scoring role this season.

“He will be more aggressive,” Thompson said. “He understands that. That’s part of the growth. We saw Jeff Green go through that, we saw Roy go through that. You go from last year: an extremely talented freshman, but a freshman nonetheless. His role on this year’s team has grown and is different, on the court and off.”

While Monroe may be back, he is different. He is stronger, has better skills—and in a depleted Big East—he will be more widely targeted.  Monroe says he is a better player than he was at the end of last season, and the Hoyas are banking on the fact that he can back up those claims.

“There’s nothing that can take pressure off Greg,” Thompson said. “He’s going to have pressure on him. He’s going to have an X on his back all year.”

The question is, will anyone be able to match up to him?