New York Times About Hoyas

[bigelephant]

thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/keeping-an-eye-on-georgetown/?pagemode=print

[kghoya]

zach hillesland? really

why didnt he write about notre dame's collapse?

[hoyatables]

Actually I thought the substance was fairly spot on.

[tashoya]

Spot on except Roy isn't 7'4", Calipari gets kids by cheating and the Princeton offense teaches kids fundamentals that they'll need at the next level. Other than that, in the byline, it should have included the fact that not only did he play at ND but that ND sucks.

[bubbrubbhoya]

Why hasn't this guy gone big time on the comedy scene? He's a comedic genius--"winning in last year's Big East was tougher than it is finding a job in this year's economy"--it's as if this guy is the direct descendent of Terry Gilliam, George Carlin, and Dave Chapelle.

If he's asking so many questions about the Georgetown system, I hope he'll at least investigate why it's so devastatingly effective against faux turtlenecks. I won't hold my breath, though.

[adlai]

Clearly a system designed to get layups or open threes, the two shots with the highest expected point value in basketball, is doomed to fail, especially with better basketball players running it. Thanks for the enlightenment, Zach!

[Boz]

It makes you want to be intentionally delinquent with your phone, cable, and Internet bills, pack a hobo sack and go Thoreau all over the nearest wooded area, all while pretending that SportsCenter and Joe Lunardi don’t exist. And last season, Georgetown was definitely one of the teams scanning Craigslist for cabin space.

WTF?? Who writes $#!t like this?? (I mean, except a high school junior/senior trying to impress an admissions committee by informing them that he knows who Thoreau is -- or at least knows how to spell his name).

But questions of success will extend past this season. Is Thompson going to be able to continually recruit the players needed to be competitive in the Big East? And are kids going to want to play in the Princeton offense? One of the reasons Kentucky’s John Calipari recruits so well is that kids want to play in his kind of system — teach them some basic principles, spread them out and give them creative license to attack. How many blue chippers out there are dreaming of mastering the back-cut in the Princeton offense? Can’t be many.

Really? Is Mike Brey that desperate that he needs you to do his negative recruiting for him?

Maybe those blue chippers should call up Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green and ask them what their bank accounts look like. Or they could call Jon Wallace and ask him how much his life sucks since he's not in the NBA right now (as most of them won't be either).

Zach Hillesland graduated from Notre Dame, where he played basketball.

.......poorly.

[TBird41]

Dec 18, 2009 10:00:55 GMT -5 Boz said:

Zach Hillesland graduated from Notre Dame, where he played basketball.

.......poorly.

And went 1-5 against the system he is maligning. And, that's not even taking into consideration that no ND player has any right to talk about which offensive systems work well, since EVERY offensive system works well against them and their awful defense.

[youngjeezy]

this article was originally written by zach hillesbrand.

what they don't tell you... the NYT editors have (likely definitely) re-written 83% of that article.

i'll roll over dead if a ND b-ball player can legitimately cite Thoreau.

[guru]

I poop bigger 'n Zach Hillesland

[AustinHoya03]

Does anyone else suspect that this blog post amounts to Hillesland repeating Mike Brey's opinions?

[MassHoya]

This Board spends hours and hours and trillions of electrons debating the "system" so when this guy or his editors come along and raise the same issue, why do we go all paranoid? It is a fair question. So far this, the answer seems to be that this team can implement the Princeton offense successfully and is growing more comfortable with it. Do not kid yourselves, as long as JT III is here, and let's hope that is for a long, long, time, the Hoyas will be using it.

I would take 2 BE championships, a Sweet 16 and a Final Four in 6 years every time. Only one improvement to add. Let the results speak for themselves.

[Boz]

Dec 18, 2009 10:51:40 GMT -5 MassHoya said:

This Board spends hours and hours and trillions of electrons debating the "system" so when this guy or his editors come along and raise the same issue, why do we go all paranoid? It is a fair question. So far this, the answer seems to be that this team can implement the Princeton offense successfully and is growing more comfortable with it. Do not kid yourselves, as long as JT III is here, and let's hope that is for a long, long, time, the Hoyas will be using it.

I would take 2 BE championships, a Sweet 16 and a Final Four in 6 years every time. Only one improvement to add. Let the results speak for themselves.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this board consists of three or four malcontents who will question the system every time we don't win by double digits or score 80+ points, followed by the rest of us telling them to Shut up for three to four pages.

I think our reaction to this "article" is pretty consistent with that.

[SFHoya99]

Dec 18, 2009 10:51:40 GMT -5 MassHoya said:

This Board spends hours and hours and trillions of electrons debating the "system" so when this guy or his editors come along and raise the same issue, why do we go all paranoid? It is a fair question. So far this, the answer seems to be that this team can implement the Princeton offense successfully and is growing more comfortable with it. Do not kid yourselves, as long as JT III is here, and let's hope that is for a long, long, time, the Hoyas will be using it.

I would take 2 BE championships, a Sweet 16 and a Final Four in 6 years every time. Only one improvement to add. Let the results speak for themselves.

Because it is incredibly poorly written. The only supporting "fact" in the entire piece is that Georgetown missed the NCAAs last year and that it was due to offense.

The latter part isn't entirely true, but you can't expect Hillesland to know what defense is.

There's a ton to say about the offense, and a ton of people to talk to.

Hillesland is doing exactly what? Is he trying to be funny? Hip? How the hell did this make it into the NY Times?

(insert easyed joke here)

[bigelephant]

He's with the Times because he's not smart enough to realize that ship be sinking.

[hoyaalf]

That dome-of-the-rockne and/or NYT animus toward GU will never go away.

Enjoy the fact that he/they are whistling past the graveyard on our prospects this year!

[calhoya]

Let's not get crazy about one article. Truthfully, many people--more than 2-3- have wondered whether the Princeton system can attract top recruits consistently. The answer is maybe, maybe not, but the real question is whether the system can make Georgetown a consistent winner that contends for the Top 20 yearly. Arguably the most important player on the Final Four team was the least touted. I see a glimmer of hope this year that JT III is learning to modify the system to utilize the athleticism of the players. I see more up tempo particularly when defense sets up the offense. To me, playing for a coach that would teach strong fundamentals while still capitalizing on the natural talents and athleticism of top recruits is the ideal combination. Ultimately the goal is to recruit quality kids with a passion for the game and a willingness to learn on and off the basketball court.

[vcjack]

Ehh, as much as I love to hate on ND players (especially the interchangeable 6'9" forwards like Zach) at least he used stats to make his point. And his big revelation that the Hoyas "looked less efficient and comfortable" is very true. He just fails to take in account things like defense and rebounding as reasons for failure, but I wouldn't expect a domer to know what those things are anyways.

[prhoya]

Hmmm, no mention of Dajuan and chemistry...

[MCIGuy]

To followup was tashoya wrote there were only two things that are legitimate about the whole article. First is that the Hoyas last season should have not been limited exclusively to halfcourt basketball. They should have tried to play faster more because they didn't have the muscle to play halfcourt ball in last season's Big East. The other thing that is true is that recruits do prefer the more open styles of a Calipari than they do the more methodical approach of III.

Everything else though was bogus.

1)III went to zone defenses at times to protect Roy and at times Jon too. Playing the Princeton system doesn’t protect Roy at all; in some ways it takes away from his strengths by forcing hi further from the basket. III stuck with the Princeton style even when Roy sat much of his first season and all the following seasons when Roy would rest many minutes. That’s the style of hoops III learned from the master so he was going tot coach his teams that way even if Roy had never arrived at Gtown. And since Roy basically dominated Notre Dame anyhow (regardless of tempo) Hillesland should have just not mentioned him at all.

2)All this talk by the folks in the media about how basketball players shouldn't play as individuals is obviously just talk. Because clowns like Hillesland keep promoting the one-on-one shenanigans of Calipari's teams while dismissing the team-like approach of III's squads.

3)Can we drop the whole "opponents have figured out the Princeton" argument. That was the explanation used to explain why in III's first year his team got off to an 8 and 3 start in the Big East only to end up 8 and 8. All you heard was that Big East teams adjusted to the style of play and learned how to stop the backdoor cuts. Well, if that's so then why did the following Gtown teams, with similar personnel, dominate the conference in latter years?

4)Aren’t people going overboard with the approach that just because Gtown collapsed last season that its bound to happen again. That’s like me assuming a school will be penalized eventually just because it picks Calipari as its coach.