A funny thing happened on the way to the 80s

[GIGAFAN99]

The 90s happened.

Well maybe not exactly, but sort of. JT2 was a defensive genius. He changed the game. In the 90s he became either apathetic, lazy, or enamored/obsessed with his style. Now, after 2007 looked to be the start of another 80s with his son, for now we're stuck in the 90s.

JTIII is a different kind of offensive genius than his dad was a defensive one. He's a little like Mike Leach of Texas Tech in football. He's good at this. Really good at this. Funny thing about genius, you can get lost in it.

And JTIII has to some extent. He loves his offense and rightfully so. So much though that he wants to recruit 5-tool offensive players and spread them around the court and win. There are no positions. Everyone is a basketball player.

Unfortunately when nobody has a position, everyone is out of position. And that's what we didn't expect.

So JTIII worked his magic Xs and Os with a regular team recruited by a regular guy and got to the Final Four. But now, he's recruited his own team and it doesn't quite work. We have an all-star team. All-star teams look great when they're on but clumsy, clanky, and defensively apathetic when they're off.

A week ago I posed he might be "fat and happy." That's not true though. As he tries 15, 16, 20, maybe more lineups, you want to tap him on the shoulder and tell him the bad news. "III, no lineup will be any different because they're all the same." And it is. We start Christin Monsummerskov and all five slots. All are comfortable facing the basket with the ball in their hands. But none know what role they play.

So here we are. III's first class promised to be the start of the new Hoya dynasty. But now that's not the case. The good news is, this is very correctable. We need an assistant, a friend, his father...anyone to tell him that to fulfill all his potential he needs to teach his offense to a regular team.

That means recruiting post players, defensive stoppers, shooters, drivers, and rebounders. That means molding specialists into all-around players. And right now we have a roster of players that are all the same and because of that, they don't know what to do.

So I'm glad I vented a week ago to avoid today. We were bad a week ago and we're bad now. We could kick around next year and adjust the offense to our strengths. We'd make the tourney. Over the next few years, we might make the Sweet 16.

But if we want to go back to the Final Four, we need to change our recruiting focus. We need a full team 1-5. We need specialists who can learn to do the rest of the skill set needed to play offense and defense.

I can't be upset today. We are what we are. Let's go JuCo, get Sims and Vaughn out of their comfort zone and get them to post up, anything for next year. But most of all, let's change the recruiting focus. We can get there eventually. I'm sure of it.

[dchoyafan]

Amazing post. I agree wholeheartedly.

[HometownHoya]

I agree with you, not necessarily concerning why more tangible reasons why this season turned out the way you did, but on how JTIII has recruited. Except when you said, "Unfortunately when nobody has a position, everyone is out of position. And that's what we didn't expect" because the fact that everyone is out of position is something that has been commented on before and has also been true for at least some player throughout JTIII's tenure. I feel like when JTIII recruits he sees players with skill set, which appeared in flashes during HS on a body that doesn't match that set, like Cs and PFs that play smaller then their size, he takes that player. Unfortunately, if you do the same with guards, you end up with guys that play bigger then their size. Hence you do pretty much end up with a team made up of "Christin Monsummerskovs" (I actually like that name, is he a 2011 recruit ).

[FLHoya]

I'm on board with a lot of what you're saying, but I'm always uncomfortable with this type of point:

Mar 10, 2009 21:59:52 GMT -5 GIGAFAN99 said:

So JTIII worked his magic Xs and Os with a regular team recruited by a regular guy and got to the Final Four. But now, he's recruited his own team and it doesn't quite work.

For me, it's just too close to being a nicer version of what is frequently said on Terps message boards: JT3 the fraud only won with the players Esherick recruited.

I think you rightly emphasize an important point--that JT3 provided a tremendous value-added to those teams through his coaching and system.

It's an interesting discussion point you're going for here--"the mix of players" vs. "the experience of the team" as the driving force behind the struggles. I still lean to the latter, but not as strongly as, say, a month ago.

[guru]

Playing the inexperience card at this point in the season is completely bogus.

St. Johns is less experienced than we are, by the way.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

We don't yet know how JTIII's Hoyas version 2.0 will be when they're version 2.1 or 2.2 (Chris & Austin's junior and senior years). We can only hope, at this point, that their improvement trajectory follows that of version 1. However, I find little to disagree with---and lots of insight---in the original post.

[bmartin]

JTIII's biggest flaw this year was that he could not hide the fact that he did not have confidence in the team to make plays and get stops in pressure situations. They needed him to impose his composure and confidence on them but instead he acquired their uncertainty and confusion.

[royski]

On the other hand, UNC seems to be doing just fine with a team of all-stars.

[sleepy]

Mar 10, 2009 22:40:52 GMT -5 guru said:

Playing the inexperience card at this point in the season is completely bogus.

St. Johns is less experienced than we are, by the way.

I don't think you quite understand the "inexperience card" We didn't lose this game because of of our inexpierence, we put ourselves in position to lose this game because of it. Our inexpirience is the reason we lost all confidence 6 weeks ago. Our inexpirience is the reason we tighten up with ten minutes left to go in the game.

Also, just because other teams are young inexperienced, doesn't change our team. Every team is different, and in a different position. Young teams are extrememly dangerous when they have momentum and confidence. Our inexperience would be an advantage if we had either of those coming into today. Young teams get better with every win and worse with every loss. If we had played Rutgers, Depaul or St Johns between Uconn and Pitt or sometime before our collapse, I honestly think this season would be competely different, because we would have had something to fall back on after a few tough losses.

[757hoyafan]

JTIII should hire Craig as his main recruiter & JTIII should coach them. (Just joking)

I still blame this on us being young. I highly doubt the man forgot how to coach over night.

[KHoyaNYC]

Mar 10, 2009 21:59:52 GMT -5 GIGAFAN99 said:

The 90s happened.

Well maybe not exactly, but sort of. JT2 was a defensive genius. He changed the game. In the 90s he became either apathetic, lazy, or enamored/obsessed with his style. Now, after 2007 looked to be the start of another 80s with his son, for now we're stuck in the 90s.

JTIII is a different kind of offensive genius than his dad was a defensive one. He's a little like Mike Leach of Texas Tech in football. He's good at this. Really good at this. Funny thing about genius, you can get lost in it.

And JTIII has to some extent. He loves his offense and rightfully so. So much though that he wants to recruit 5-tool offensive players and spread them around the court and win. There are no positions. Everyone is a basketball player.

Unfortunately when nobody has a position, everyone is out of position. And that's what we didn't expect.

So JTIII worked his magic Xs and Os with a regular team recruited by a regular guy and got to the Final Four. But now, he's recruited his own team and it doesn't quite work. We have an all-star team. All-star teams look great when they're on but clumsy, clanky, and defensively apathetic when they're off.

A week ago I posed he might be "fat and happy." That's not true though. As he tries 15, 16, 20, maybe more lineups, you want to tap him on the shoulder and tell him the bad news. "III, no lineup will be any different because they're all the same." And it is. We start Christin Monsummerskov and all five slots. All are comfortable facing the basket with the ball in their hands. But none know what role they play.

So here we are. III's first class promised to be the start of the new Hoya dynasty. But now that's not the case. The good news is, this is very correctable. We need an assistant, a friend, his father...anyone to tell him that to fulfill all his potential he needs to teach his offense to a regular team.

That means recruiting post players, defensive stoppers, shooters, drivers, and rebounders. That means molding specialists into all-around players. And right now we have a roster of players that are all the same and because of that, they don't know what to do.

So I'm glad I vented a week ago to avoid today. We were bad a week ago and we're bad now. We could kick around next year and adjust the offense to our strengths. We'd make the tourney. Over the next few years, we might make the Sweet 16.

But if we want to go back to the Final Four, we need to change our recruiting focus. We need a full team 1-5. We need specialists who can learn to do the rest of the skill set needed to play offense and defense.

I can't be upset today. We are what we are. Let's go JuCo, get Sims and Vaughn out of their comfort zone and get them to post up, anything for next year. But most of all, let's change the recruiting focus. We can get there eventually. I'm sure of it.

This is definitely one way to look at it. The only problem I have with it is that we didn't struggle all year. We came out 10-1. We drilled UCONN on their home court running as good a Princeton O as I have ever seen. Everyone seemed to be on the same page. The cuts were crisp. Monroe's passes reminded me of Jeff Green. Sapp was hitting open 3s, Freeman was finishing, Summers was the Summers we expected, and Wright looked like a PG we haven't had in a long time. But then something happened in mid-January that caused the wheels to come off. I don't think it was because everyone looked at each other and said "hey, I'm an all star but I don't have a position so I don't know what to do." Somehow we lost our confidence. We played tentative. Our body language was different. I don't know what happened. I'm not sure JTIII knows. But I don't think it was because "nobody had a position" or that JTIII recruited the wrong players. I just can't buy that. We were there and firing on all cylinders. Then we lost it and never got it back.

[the_way]

Truth be told, Pops got lazy after he won the National title. He said he just wanted one National title. And he also knew that when he was hired the expectation was "just get us to a couple of NIT's". So by him winning the Natinoal title, he knew he would never be fired.

from 1985 until 1990, JT2 stopped learning how to coach and improving. He even relented on his recruiting efforts. But we had lottery picks on those teams to mask his laziness and those team's deficiencies (Reggie Williams, Mourning, Mutumbo).

By the 1990's JT2's laziness caught up with him. Just look at the talent surrounding Mourning and Mutumbo in the 1990-1991 season, and in Mourning's senior year. And you saw a significant drop-off and we missed the NCAA's during Othella's freshman year and barely got in his sophomore year. If it wasn't for Allen Iverson's arrival, JT2 may have retired even earlier than the 1998-1999 season.


JTIII is suffering from what Gary Williams suffered from after he won the Nationa title, and Boheiem suffered from after he won the a National title. Both Gary and Boheim had great heralded recruting classes afterward that never really panned out and they missed those programs eventually declined missing the NCAA's, etc. Why? because in the Euphoria of huge success they lost sight of what made them successful.

but the main difference is that Pops knew what he was doing the whole time. When he wanted to get off his butt and recruit talent, he did (you saw the talent Esh had with that 2000-2001 team...JT2 had recruited the majority of those players). Pops was conscious of everything he did. He was never blinded by anything.

Gary and Jim Boheim had certain way of doing this and bringing in their type of players to win and had a history leading up to their success and the decline of their programs.

JTIII doesn't have a history or enough of a body of work here at G-town just yet. A lot of the success he had were with players recruited by Esh (Hibbert and Green) who were NBA draft picks.

So we don't know, at this level, the history of JTIII just yet. We know he can coach. There is no adjustement needed there on offense or defense. The key is, can he recruit to build a history of winning here at G-town. Right now, he has a team consistent of all of the players he recruited, and it doesn't look good right now. So the jury is still out.

I think JTIII has recruited the players he wanted here. But that style of player doesn't work in the ultra-competitve Big East. Its not that he is fat and happy. His complete way of doing things haven't been proven to work or fail at the highest level of basketball just yet. This team is still fairly young and inexperienced. That is his pass for this year. But if the next 2 years are more of the same, than that does raise some concern.

[bmartin]

The key to next year is Henry Sims' developemnt as a big man. He needs to go to big man camp so he can play center. I hope they put Sims and Wright together on the Tombs and tell them to pick and roll and run a 3-man game with Hollis.

[vamosalaplaya]

I think Giga's post is interesting; I view the 90s as being "Allen Iverson's mom ordering him to play for JT II" away from being a total sea of mediocrity for GU hoops; I don't see this year as analogous.

KHoyaNYC you nailed much of it I think - there were games when the Hoyas looked great. This year was about two things:

a) Chemistry and leadership:

The team got unhinged from a chemistry standpoint by a schedule that was just too tough early on and never got it back.

KHoya - in your summary of the UConn game you over-stated one person - Sapp. He didn't have a good game, the other four guys did.

Jesse Sapp had a horrible year from a statistical standpoint, there was a lack of leadership on the court, as has widely been noted, and from the way the coach treated him - he didn't start him for his last home game? Did I see that right? - the coach seems to have drawn conclusions. And Summers doesn't have the complete game of a Green to lead the team.

Next year hopefully the nexus of the team will be Wright and Monroe and everyone will work off of them.

b) Speed of play, shot selection, etc. Even when Georgetown was winning the Big East there were posters on this board musing about what it would look like if the team would speed up. This year we saw it - and too often, as the game got into crunch time, the team became dysfunctional. I remember marveling at how patient the Wallace and Green teams always were as the shot clock wore down, or the game wound down and the Hoyas were behind - they played their game, always getting great shots. The one things the Hoyas got last year in all their close games were great looks at the basket as time wore down. Watch the replays of the Lousville and Villanova games and see the shots the Cards and the Wildcats got as time wound down - it was chicken-without-a-head offense.

Not this team. They played streetball, generally beginning with about 10 minutes to go in the game, the wheels would come off. First time I noticed it was the Pitt game. But you saw it over and over again. Forget playing from behind - the team couldn't play from ahead when the clock got under ten minutes. And it didn't look like the Princeton offense they were playing much of the time.

What a disappointing season. JT III is a smart guy and he will figure it out. But at a minimum, don't look for too many tough games outside of what is already committed to on the pre-Big East schedule. This team will need wins to get confidence and establish chemistry next year, not early season showdowns with top teams.

[Boz]

Mar 11, 2009 9:05:26 GMT -5 bmartin said:

The key to next year is Henry Sims' developemnt as a big man. He needs to go to big man camp so he can play center. I hope they put Sims and Wright together on the Tombs and tell them to pick and roll and run a 3-man game with Hollis.

THE key, I don't know about, but definitely A key.

Amid all of our cliff jumping and preparations for ritual hara-kiri, it is difficult to find any positives at the moment, but I think Henry's improved play toward the end of the season is definitely one of them.

(I know the Henry Sims fan club would say that he would have been even better toward the end of the year if he had gotten more playing time earlier, but I do still trust JTIII to determine when a player is ready for extended minutes on the floor).

I think Chris Wright learned to play with a little more control over the course of the season too.

Again, no tremendous positives overall (how many CAN there be when you finish the season the way the Hoyas did?) but some things that make me optimistic.

Really, I think a front court of Sims (5), Monroe (4) and Summers (3) would be pretty formidable in the BE next season.

Add a CW and AF backcourt and that's a starting lineup I like a lot, with Vaughn, Clark and Thompson coming off the bench (and yes, I also think Nikita will also improve and be able to contribute off the bench).

Yes, I realize that at the moment, that is a good lineup on paper only. I am not dismissing GIGA's criticisms outright that this team got lost somewhere around the Duke game and never recovered. If they don't recover and get together as a team, of course that lineup will not do much more than this year's team did.

But hell, if you think that's going to be the outcome, why not just jump off the cliff now and save yourself the trouble?

I, for one, prefer to believe.

[kghoya]

Mar 10, 2009 22:36:07 GMT -5 FLHoya said:

For me, it's just too close to being a nicer version of what is frequently said on Terps message boards: JT3 the fraud only won with the players Esherick recruited.

i'm also tired of hearing people say jt3 got to the final four with esherick's players

3 of the 5 starters were jt3 guys -summers, sapp, and wallace

the main bench players were jt3 guys - rivers, macklin, ewing

[NCHoya]

Mar 11, 2009 9:41:04 GMT -5 kghoya said:

Mar 10, 2009 22:36:07 GMT -5 FLHoya said:

For me, it's just too close to being a nicer version of what is frequently said on Terps message boards: JT3 the fraud only won with the players Esherick recruited.

i'm also tired of hearing people say jt3 got to the final four with esherick's players

3 of the 5 starters were jt3 guys -summers, sapp, and wallace

the main bench players were jt3 guys - rivers, macklin, ewing

Excellent point, it is always lost that Wallace and Ewing only came to Georgetown becasue III was here. Without those two, we do not get to the final four or win 2 BE titles.

[NCHoya]

When I look at the season as a whole, the only plausible explanation I can figure for how a team starts 10-1 and finishes 16-14 is confidence. The inexperience comes into play because a veteran team does not lose its confidence as quickly as this team did.

The second piece of evidence that this was a crisis of confidence is how we struggled offensively. The effort was there for the most part, and unlike most on this board, I thought the defense was good enough. What we really were not good at was offense. Confidence does not stop you from playing hard or guarding your man, but what it does do is take away your aggressiveness and trust in your own game, your teammates and the system you are running. That is why I think this season simply comes down to a crisis of confidence.

As for III's role, well his constant substitution patterns definitely did not help build any confidence, if anything it exacerbated it. Further, his tinkering with end game situations, and never settling on the guy, was an idictment of his own lack of confidence in the players. These guys are not dumb, they could see JT3 was reaching with each substitution and each late game play.

Next year, JT3 need to ensure this team does not get lost in its miserable performances. He can do that by scheduling a cupcake game in the mid-BE schedule or reduce the number of tough OOC games in a row. Once this team began to doubt themselves, the offense went to hell and so did the winning.

[the_way]

Mar 11, 2009 9:41:04 GMT -5 kghoya said:

Mar 10, 2009 22:36:07 GMT -5 FLHoya said:

For me, it's just too close to being a nicer version of what is frequently said on Terps message boards: JT3 the fraud only won with the players Esherick recruited.

i'm also tired of hearing people say jt3 got to the final four with esherick's players

3 of the 5 starters were jt3 guys -summers, sapp, and wallace

the main bench players were jt3 guys - rivers, macklin, ewing

what round and at what position were those guys drafted?

I know Hibbert and Jeff were NBA 1st rounders?

what about the other guys? ;D

Doesn't hurt to have that type of talent to inherit.

I mean, lets call it for what it is.

We get it: Folks hate Esherick.

But let's not let Esh hate get in the way, and act like he had not recruited those guys, and those were not the two most important pieces to the reviving this dead program. A 7'2 center and NBA 1st round draft pick and 6'8 future Big East player of the year and NBA lottery pick? come on.

[KHoyaNYC]

Mar 11, 2009 9:26:26 GMT -5 vamosalaplaya said:

I think Giga's post is interesting; I view the 90s as being "Allen Iverson's mom ordering him to play for JT II" away from being a total sea of mediocrity for GU hoops; I don't see this year as analogous.

KHoyaNYC you nailed much of it I think - there were games when the Hoyas looked great. This year was about two things:

a) Chemistry and leadership:

The team got unhinged from a chemistry standpoint by a schedule that was just too tough early on and never got it back.

KHoya - in your summary of the UConn game you over-stated one person - Sapp. He didn't have a good game, the other four guys did.

Jesse Sapp had a horrible year from a statistical standpoint, there was a lack of leadership on the court, as has widely been noted, and from the way the coach treated him - he didn't start him for his last home game? Did I see that right? - the coach seems to have drawn conclusions. And Summers doesn't have the complete game of a Green to lead the team.

Next year hopefully the nexus of the team will be Wright and Monroe and everyone will work off of them.

b) Speed of play, shot selection, etc. Even when Georgetown was winning the Big East there were posters on this board musing about what it would look like if the team would speed up. This year we saw it - and too often, as the game got into crunch time, the team became dysfunctional. I remember marveling at how patient the Wallace and Green teams always were as the shot clock wore down, or the game wound down and the Hoyas were behind - they played their game, always getting great shots. The one things the Hoyas got last year in all their close games were great looks at the basket as time wore down. Watch the replays of the Lousville and Villanova games and see the shots the Cards and the Wildcats got as time wound down - it was chicken-without-a-head offense.

Not this team. They played streetball, generally beginning with about 10 minutes to go in the game, the wheels would come off. First time I noticed it was the Pitt game. But you saw it over and over again. Forget playing from behind - the team couldn't play from ahead when the clock got under ten minutes. And it didn't look like the Princeton offense they were playing much of the time.

What a disappointing season. JT III is a smart guy and he will figure it out. But at a minimum, don't look for too many tough games outside of what is already committed to on the pre-Big East schedule. This team will need wins to get confidence and establish chemistry next year, not early season showdowns with top teams.

Vamosa - I hear ya on Sapp, but he did have a huge onions 3 when UCONN was making a run - just what you expect from Sapp even when he's struggling, a clutch play.