On Saturday afternoon, following the Hoyas’ triumph over Utah State, John Thompson III stood in the Verizon Center pressroom answering questions, just as he has for the past six years. But after answering the final question, Thompson didn’t move—he wanted to make something clear.
“I want to say something,” Thompson said. “This is related to a lot of your questions. With our group, with our team, for us to be good, we all have input. It’s not like I’m one of these coaches [who says] this is what we’re going to do. We come to timeouts, we come to sidelines, we come to practice—Chris, Austin, every once in a while Henry—‘What do you see, what do you think?’”
It seemed like Thompson was speaking to more than just the people in the room that day—it was like he was talking to the critics of his coaching.
When he arrived at Georgetown, Thompson was tasked with revamping a moribund former powerhouse. Since then, Thompson has had six consecutive winning seasons and brought a good amount of hardware back to McDonough, none greater than 2007’s Final Four banner. But with all his success, there are still a fair number of critics. In the years following the Hoyas’ Final Four run, some believe Thompson has underachieved, with each season ending prematurely by Georgetown standards. The most common criticism of Thompson is against the Princeton offense he runs and his alleged inability to incorporate players’ skills into his system. That fire was fueled last season by the comments of a former Thompson player.
“At Georgetown I would run the same thing over and over, and it became so repetitive,” ex-Hoya Jeremiah Rivers told the Indianapolis Star. “I really became like a robot there offensively.”
Rivers, a role player on the Final Four squad, transferred to Indiana likely because of Thompson’s system. Not every player that has walked through the Healy Gates in the last five years has reached his full potential, of course. But so far this season, Thompson has done much to silence his critics. Although the Hoyas have played only eight games, this campaign already looks like it could be Thompson’s best as coach, in terms of Thompson’s ability to fit his players to his system.
When the Hoyas were tied with Utah State in the first half, a 24-5 run sparked by a suffocating press put the game out of reach. Thompson has never really broken out a full-court press before, with his teams earning a reputation for playing a slower style of game. But this season he has the tools for the press in his outstanding trio of guards, and he’s not letting them go to waste. And Thompson is bestowing some of the decision-making responsibilities on his players.
“We go for feel,” senior guard Chris Wright said. “Coach sometimes makes the call, sometimes I feel something and I make the call.”
Thompson understands that sometimes certain things happen on the court that you can’t see from the sidelines, and he gives his experienced guards the freedom to make their own decisions. By giving them this liberty, he has allowed Wright, Austin Freeman and Jason Clark to flourish. Wright is averaging 6.8 assists per game—11th best in the country. Freeman is averaging 20.1 points per game and lighting it up behind the arc, as is the junior Clark.
When all is said and done this season, who knows what people will think about Thompson? There will always be critics. Something is different this year, though. Coming into the season, many were worried how the coach would adjust to a guard-oriented team, especially when it seemed Thompson would never stray from his system. If the current trend continues though, Thompson won’t have to clarify anything. He’ll let the record speak for itself.
