Post-Game Discussions

Bottom line...JT3 isnt a GREAT D1 coach. He is good. He can keep us interested. However, he doesnt have the desire and skill to be a great coach in bid D1 basketball. The faster we accept that the faster we will be confortable with these types of seasons under him.

Unfortunately the only team playing traditional "Georgetown" D this year is WVU - let's hope we reverse the trend next year.

Are you serious? JT3 has a ton of talent on his squad. More than Murray State, BYU, Old Dominion, MSC....who all have tourney wins this year. He has had the fortunate opportunity of having Gtown's past to help him. However, Gtown's future isnt going to build off him. He is a good coach...but his inability to retain talent is going to haunt us for years.

Nikita could have added minutes as well as Benimon could but at least he could finish a layup or hit a 3 once in a while. Who said anything about Omar, Thorton etc? If you are lost its your own fault. I just said that JT3 doesnt know how to retain talent...talent WE NEED! He doesnt know how to get role players to want to fill those roles.

After the disaster last night I needed an uplift so I put in the "feel good" movie Blindside. AS I watched the scene where Michael Oher decides to do his term paper on Tennyson's poem"The charge of the light brigade", it dawned on me what might be happening with this team. I think that JT3 is a very good X and O's coach. He has taken the Princeton offence taught him under Carril and tweaked it to become his hybrid offense. He has taken some of the man-to-man principles of his dad's defense and tweaked it to get his switching man-to-man defense. What then is missing with this team that has 3 Mckie D AA? I think it is that common bond of playing for something bigger than your individual self. Just as the soldiers in the poem rode off to a certain death, they did so because it was for a cause greater than themselves. When JT2 was building the program back in the late 70's and early 80's it was Hoya Paranoia, "us against the world" that was the common bond amongst all JT2's players. They played to show the world that they were good and that their coach was a good coach. JT2's teams parlayed that attitude into a National Championship in 1984. When JT3 took over the program it was at a low level of recognized prominance in college basketball, i.e. Billy Packer comment "why would major recruit go to GTown". His battle cry was "we are Georgetown, some have forgotten, but we will make them remember" J. Green,J. Wallace, R. Hibbert,Sapp, Pat,Jr, all came to Georgetown and played for Georgetown to make that battle cry a reality. To make people remember that Georgetown was and would be again a national power. They played with a common purpose to get the Hoyas back to the Final Four. They played for something bigger than themselves. That motivation can make you forget your nerves and play inspired ball. Last year's team and this year's team seemed to lack that motivation of wanting to prove the Hoyas were back. The Green, Wallace and Hibbert teams had already done that. Their job was to maintain that status, but they could not except when faced with the motivation to prove that they were as good as the top teams i.e., the victories over UConn last year Duke, Nova, Syracuse, and Pitt this year. As I look back on last night and how Ohio torched their defense. It was not because they were lazy or did not care, it was because they were the favorites and the pressure of the big stage put concrete in their feet. They were not trying to prove that they could beat a good team they were just trying to maintain. They were not playing for somethng bigger than themselves. The task for JT3 forward will be to convince these young guys that while The Final Four is the Mecca of college ball, it is raising that trophy at the end that is the ultimate goal, not to just get there. Green, Wallace and Hibbert did not complete the journey, they must ban together and finish the job of being national champs again before the world really remembers and recognizes that the Hoyas are back. That's why the snake oil salesman Calipari will win it all this year because he has his young Kentucky team playing to restore the glory of Kentucky basketball and to win him his first national title. They are playing for something bigger than their individual selves.

Oh my. I simply don't understand this sentence.....

Do you think we have a talentless team? NOT TEN??? Maybe if some kid in the student body was coaching the team. How could you possibly even think this?

The biggest failure this year was the lack of development of Henry Sims. That is a shared responsibility of the coaches and Henry himself.
The second biggest failure was the lack of development of a lockdown perimeter defender. We overswitch and overhelp and play bad zones because we can't guard straight up. We needed Vee to develop as a defensive specialist. Clark has the reach to get some steals and contest shots but he could be beaten off the dribble.
The third failure was a lack of good options or a plan when Freeman was off or out. We needed to play Hollis at the three but to do that we needed more from Vaughn, Benimon, and Sims. Whenever their man set a pick we were in trouble and on the offensive end their defender could hedge and help without getting burned.

I think we are young and lack leadership, outside of Freeman.

the problem with the youth argument is that folks don't say it when we win. only when we lose.

I think a great point is made about something bigger than yourselves effects your motivation and how you play.

But, i'm not sure that was the case with the Hibbert, Wallace, and Green era.

JTIII needs guys who are self-motivated.

And ultimately, all winning coaches do.

Its the type of player that you have. Sure, some coaches can give speeches, but if kids don't want to do it, its no point.

When JTIII first got here, he walked into an ideal situation. He had kids who were self-motivated.

Hibbert could barely walk and run up and down the court, and he turned himself into an NBA 1st round draft pick.

Green had lead his high school team to a state championship. he knew what it meant to be a leader and play in the high-stakes type of environment.

Wallace had an uncanny field for the game in terms of running a team and sensing when his team needed him most or when it was good for him to fall back and get others involved.

Ewing, Jr. could have played fpr a Division III school. His motor, enthusiasm, and tenacity would not change. Thats the type of kid that he was.

Crawford, rarely saw time on the basketball court. Yet, he had the respect of his teammates and they viewed him as a leader and looked to him for leadership. How often do you see that in sports?

So yeah, playing for something bigger is all great, but when it comes down to it, kids have to "want it" regardless of the circumstances. All the great competitors compete. They compete just as hard in the big games as they do in pick-up games. Circumstances and external factors mean nothing.

The opportunity to compete is the primary, motivating factor.

With this group we have....we can light up the stat sheet and box scores, we have the McDonald's All-americans, rivals.com ranked recruits....but where is the "it" factor with this team. That extra "umph" that you can't put your finger on, that makes a team special. I don't see that with this group we have right now.

Freeman finally showed some intangibles this year, imo. But other than that, I haven't seen that from Monroe and Wright, our other top players. Maybe another year of experience will change that, maybe it won't.

RDF, your III bashing is annoying. Let it go dude. His is our coach and he is a really good one. Something on D is amiss for sure but your love of the glory days when we had no offensive strategy and played great D ain't coming back soon so get used to it.