Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We G

[Loyal Hoya]

Leave it to a pretentious SFS'er to use the title of a Gauguin painting as the subject line of his bball post!

I know there is plenty of basketball to be played this season, and we have some tough games ahead of us. But I just thought I'd observe that this season is shaping up to be a truly special season. There's no question that it's already our best season since the Sweet 16 in Sweetney's freshman year, and, so far, it might even be more surprising than the Reggie and the Miracles season in 86-87.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but my question is: Where do we go from here?

In college basketball, outside perception plays a big role in recruiting, and it's easy to slip into a virtuous circle or a vicious cycle. I'm not saying that just because you have some success, you are guaranteed to have more success. But there is no question that strong programs like UNC, Duke, UConn, Kentucky, Kansas, and Mich St have a strong recruiting advantage. We were there (maybe longer than we deserved to be based on our play- go back and watch Hoop Dreams and notice all the Hoya t-shirts, and that was in CHICAGO!), and we all want to get back to that point.

What I'm really saying is that when you have some success, you have to take advantage of it. Look at what happened after we went to the tournament the last time. We had an experienced point gaurd in Bras; we had an exciting shooting guard who could drive to the hoop or hit the 3 in Hunter; we had a great, young, old-school power forward in Sweetney; and we had what seemed to be a strong recruiting class in Thomas, Bethel, Owens, and Hall.

What happened? Hunter transferred (I think that this turned out to be the devastating blow that killed our momentum). Like Kenny Brunner, Victor Page, Milton Bell, Anthony Tucker, and many others before him, Thomas turned out to be a bad fit for Georgetown. And after two years of frustration, Sweetney left for the NBA, and Hall and Bethel decided to go elsewhere.

The lessons for me are no different from what many of you have been saying:

Recruit Players that will stay for four years
This doesn't mean that all our players have to be advantaged suburban kids like Grant Hill, Collins, and Dunleavey at Duke. Nor does it mean that we should never take a chance on a kid that might need a new start. But we need to do a better job of recruiting players that will stay for four years. With so many kids going straight to the NBA, the Georgetown education and experience should be used to attract four-year players who want something to fall back on if their NBA dreams don't pan out. Courtland Freeman is a great example.

Sell the Big East
We will undoubtedly be in the best basketball conference next year. The best players want to play against the best, and Georgetown players will have that opportunity. The danger is that, if the conference is too tough next year, it could slow our momentum.

Improve our OOC Schedule
Competitive players want the opportunity to test themselves. As the team improves, we should slowly and steadily improve our OOC schedule. I think you can go overboard with this (e.g. Michigan State last year) and hurt your team's confidence. It's also okay to schedule some patsies around exam time. I agree with many of you that we just need to replace a few terrible teams with mediocre teams and play 2-3 premiere programs each year.

On the issue of facilities, I'm probably in the minority on the board. I don't think we need the fancy film rooms or student-athlete study centers that the big state schools offer. It would be nice to have our own home court, but the MCI Center is a huge improvement over the Cap Centre. I've been off campus for a long time, but I still think that academic facilities should be a higher priority. We should tell a recruit that if he wants a fancy film room, he should go to the big state school. We offer a small school with approachable professors and small classes. The big state school is a factory that will use you for your talents. We are a family that will make sure you get an education, grow as a person, and become a better basketball player.

Anyway, my point is that this season presents a great opportunity to get out of the vicious cycle that we've been in and to build the program that we all want. Let's not squander the opportunity.

Go Hoyas! Beat the Irish!

[HoyaSox04]

LoyalHoya, I agree with pretty much everything you say, except maybe the part about the facilties. I say this only because I think GU is making a concerted effort to improve the athletic facilities on campus (if you've seen the design plans for the new Harbin Football Stadium, you understand what I'm talking about).

As for recruiting, I think it's hard to focus your recruiting solely on players that will stay 4 years, if you have the ability to get a TOP recruit that wants to play for you. This can have a great effect on a program (see 'Cuse and the impact the one year of Carmelo has had up there). However, I also can see the impact of recruiting McDonald's all-americans and the other top players (see UNC and this year's recruiting class: JR Smith, already in the NBA; Marvin Williams, destined to leave for the NBA after this year, even though he's only been their sixth man; JamesOn Curry: um, legal issues.) I think it's important to find a healthy mix of both. I think that Jeff is not necessarily a player who will stay 4 years (although I pray to god that he does), but the impact he has had on this team in 3/4 of his FRESHMAN year has been unbelievable. I will take a team full of JG's every year, even if they plan to only stay three years. But I digress.

As for the OoC schedule, I have a question for the rest of the board: does anyone know what kind of OoC we are lining up for next year? I remember reading about JT3 setting up our OoC around teams that will play similar styles to the teams we are going to see in the BE. My question is, then, how is this going to impact our OoC schedule with the inclusion of the 5 new BE teams next year? Does anyone have any insights, insider knowledge, etc of what we are looking at for next year?

[CAHoya07]

For the most part, I agree with your points. However, I strongly disagree on your belittling the need of the improvement of facilities. Facilities plays a big part in recruiting, and right now our lack of D-I level facilities is a recruiting liability. Plus our basketball players deserve fine facilities to practice and play in. Something needs to be done very soon.

I hope that we can build the infrastructure of the program now, something that never seemed to happen under JT the elder. That way, looking WAY ahead in the future, when JT III ends up leaving many years down the road, we can pick up right where we left off, and never again get suck in an Esherickean crisis.

My point is that while Georgetown as a TEAM has improved dramastically this year, we need to do the same work with Georgetown as a PROGRAM. This is mostly all the off-the-court stuff that still needs improving - facilities, marketing and promotion, fan atmosphere, local and national TV, etc.

[EasyEd]

One comment: it seems to me that we have gotten a lot better coverage in the local newspapers this year compared to prior years. We're still way behind Maryland, but it's gotten better. I know some of the improvement is due to our winning. I hope some of the credit goes to an improved sports information office. Anybody have any information on that?

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

CAHoya07 said:

For the most part, I agree with your points. However, I strongly disagree on your belittling the need of the improvement of facilities. Facilities plays a big part in recruiting, and right now our lack of D-I level facilities is a recruiting liability. Something needs to be done very soon.

I hope that we can build the infrastructure of the program now, something that never seemed to happen under JT the elder. That way, looking WAY ahead in the future, when JT III ends up leaving many years down the road, we can pick up right where we left off, and never again get suck in an Esherickean crisis.

My point is that while Georgetown as a TEAM has improved dramastically this year, we need to do the same work with Georgetown as a PROGRAM. This is mostly all the off-the-court stuff that still needs improving - facilities, marketing and promotion, fan atmosphere, local and national TV, etc.

CAHoya07,

Excellent points! BTW, this is exactly what DFW has been arguing for the past several years but, lately, it has been inexplicably spun/construed by a number of board readers as somehow "anti-JTIII"

[SirSaxa]

Loyal said:

Recruit Players that will stay for four years

I was reading that and trying to think of players who left early vs. those who transferred. I was assuming you meant players who won't leave for the NBA -- in other words, no top ten recruits.

But who has actually left early for the NBA?
Iverson
Page (what a mistake!)
Sweetney

Would you say we should not have recruited those three? Page might have been inappropriate, but the Mike and allen.

We should focus on building a foundation with kids who will stay all four years and who are still top flight recruits. But once we get this thing back on track -- which T3 has almost done already -- bringing in the occasional top 10 kid who might leave early will be a key part of getting our team over the top.

Next year's team will benefit from 4 year players Cook and Bowman in key roles.... senior leadership. The rest of the team seems like 4 year players, although i wouldn't guarantee Green will stay, especially if he keeps growing. Even Roy might develop enough to move on. But with our entire starting five back, two senior leaders, and what looks like a very good freshman class coming in, GU should be ranked and in line for a very solid year.

[Loyal Hoya]

On facilities, I don't meant to suggest that we should never upgrade our facilities. There is a case to be made that investing in the basketball program will reap positive returns to the university as a whole. But for every Duke or Gonzaga where this might be true, there are hundreds of Florida's and Auburn's where athletics becomes an end in itself. I am all for excellence in athletics, but I think there should be a sense of proportion. We should understand that there are always opportunity costs. My rule of thumb is that for very dollar I donate to Hoya Hoops, I have to donate two dollars to academics and/or student aid. I worry that giving 1/3 to basketball is still a little warped on my part.

So, if we can afford to invest in facilities, that's great. I'd love to have better facilities and an on-campus arena. Still, we should realize that we will never be able to compete with the athletic budgets of big state universities. Therefore, we should emphasize our other considerable strengths.

On recruiting four-year players, it does not concern me greatly that Sweetney and Iverson left early for the NBA. If you can make millions of dollars in the job of your dreams (whether it's basketball or starting your own software company like Bill Gates), more power to you! It's no disgrace to Georgetown that a kid takes advantage of a great opportunity. It's also unrealistic for anyone to expect that a coach can perfectly predict who will stay four years and who will stay out of trouble. So, I guess I would say that we should recruit players who value education and hard work and who appear to be capable of doing the work.

[Deleted]

A couple of thoughts:
Facilities - while there is a groundswell of philosophical support for an on campus arena, there are a lot of potholes down that road. As much as we would all love to have a great on campus arena, we have to make do with what we have for now and make MCI the nest home court it can be for us.
Scheduling - JT3 will schedule based on what he thinks is appropriate for his team from year to year. Some years (experienced team, high expectations), a really strong out-of-conference schedule is appropriate. Other years, not so much. I'm guessing his schedules will never be as weak as some that we've seen in the past, though.
Recruiting - I don't think this system is conducive to one-and-done type guys, and I doubt JT3 would pursue many of them. If someone gets here and blossoms and leaves early, so be it. I just don't see us going after the Carmelo types.

[hoyabinx]

Although I think the facilities issue has been beaten to the ground, it is good to keep up the conversation so it is never a dead issue.

In my opinion, the way to an on campus type arena runs through JT III. If we continue to improve on this pace we will be a consistent top 25 team in 3 years. With the kind of respect that being a consistantly good team garners, it will be hard for the University to continue to ignore cries for better facilities. I don't see the university even making plans for this for another 10 years, but if JTIII goes 20-10 (or thereabouts) for 10 straight years, the ball is in his hand.

Now, I have been a proponet for an on-campus arena for a long time, but if the student turnout continues to increase as it has, MCI will be a true home court. Look at the student turnout after just 3/4 of a season under JTIII, its unreal compared to the last 3 years. Pretty soon, if not next year, students will have to be under both baskets, or wrap around to the side. If we can get the whole section into the game than that place is loud as any other place (see airball chant from WVU game). However, i still think it will still fuel the fire for something closer to campus.

There are intense road blocks to something oncampus, but if the city can put a ballpark in Anacostia than Gtown can get a 7,000 seat arena close to campus.