If Mike Brey could do it...

[Grandpa]

Why can't JTIII?

When ND lost Harangody to injury for an extended period of time last season, Brey had his team adapt to the new circumstances employing a much more methodical offensive scheme with renewed emphasis on the defensive end, which helped ND with a somewhat improbable late season surge (mostly without Harangody) to a NCAA bid which was very much in question even prior to Gody's injury.

Now, obviously the situation with Chris Wright being out is even more sensitive for the Hoyas given how much he has been involved in touching the ball on offense (particularly with regard to bringing the ball up against pressure), but that is the challenge for JTIII to figure out - how best to leverage Chris' teammates (from seniors on down to freshmen) to put the team in a position to win.

Difficult, yes (particularly thinking about senior day in less than 2.5 days), but something I think we all believe Coach and his staff can do over the next week or two.

Good luck to the coaching staff and the players and best wishes to Chris on a speedy (if not miraculous) recovery!

Hoya Saxa!

[sleepy]

Chris is NOT Harangody. Chris made every player around him better, he creates a good portion of our teams shots either directly or indirectly and he runs the offense. Harangody was also an addition by subtraction for Notre Dame as he was a black hole offensively that was surrounded by good players that weren't getting the touches they should have gotten. Not the case here. The only other player more important to a Georgetown team was Jeff Green in 2007. We have no offense without him. Although our defense may slightly improve.

[skyhoya]

play Vee at the point, not Starks

[RDF]

Sleepy-you are missing the point--the coach changed the style of play to fit what he had--as he's done this year--runs against most teams but plays more deliberate when he has an opponent he thinks he can't beat that way-he gameplans for an opponent--what a novel concept.

Nobody in their right mind thinks Georgetown is better without Wright-will be as good as they were without him-but it's also why a coach who doesn't rely on a system has an easier time adjusting then those who do--because when a cog in the system breaks down--you are screwed. When you recruit players-there should be a reason--so what do they do well and what don't they do well? Adjust and give team the best chance to win.

If you have guards who can't handle the ball-that is a major issue no matter what type of system/team you have. These guys have to be able to bring the ball up and be strong with it. Maybe you press even more? I don't know exactly what he'll do--but he's got to do something other then force a system on a team that can't operate without Wright.

[sleepy]

I understand the point, but it doesn't matter because thats the system we have, and its not going to change. We can't just readjust our offensive approach with two games left in the regular season to replace the facilitator of the offense. It's just not possible with this offense. Yes we can sit around here and complain and cry about the fact that our offense is reliant on one player, but its the risk you take when you run an offense that is so strongly based off of chemistry, feel and flow.
We can't press more since we aren't a good pressing team to begin with and we now have less depth in addition to the fact that we were good at pushing tempo because Chris thrived in it. We can't just scrap the Princeton offense with two games left in the season without inviting total chaos on an already turnover prone team. We can't run without Chris and we can't not run without Chris.
We lost the one player that was irreplaceable to our team. Simple as that. The only hope we have is that Chris comes back.

[SaxaCD]

Feb 24, 2011 1:00:47 GMT -5 RDF said:

Sleepy-you are missing the point--the coach changed the style of play to fit what he had--as he's done this year--runs against most teams but plays more deliberate when he has an opponent he thinks he can't beat that way-he gameplans for an opponent--what a novel concept.

Nobody in their right mind thinks Georgetown is better without Wright-will be as good as they were without him-but it's also why a coach who doesn't rely on a system has an easier time adjusting then those who do--because when a cog in the system breaks down--you are screwed. When you recruit players-there should be a reason--so what do they do well and what don't they do well? Adjust and give team the best chance to win.

If you have guards who can't handle the ball-that is a major issue no matter what type of system/team you have. These guys have to be able to bring the ball up and be strong with it. Maybe you press even more? I don't know exactly what he'll do--but he's got to do something other then force a system on a team that can't operate without Wright.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me -- the strength of a system is that the cogs are more replaceable, since you have a system to fall back on, not just individual stars. Now, I think our situation is different this year, because the Hoyas lack the plethora of ballhandlers (as RDF points out) that, frankly, help the "Princetown" offense and its variants run much more smoothly, and also because, as much as I screamed at the tv sometime, at least Chris was willing to drive the ball. But in theory, JT3's "system" should help the team cope with the loss of any one player. We shall see, because it's still up to the guys now getting the minutes to step up and show some cojones.

I think one way to compensate is to pass the ball much more crisply, mitigating the need to dribble so much. But everybody has to bring more firepower now, and that means guys like Lubick, who has hustled and shown some promise but now needs to make all the bunnies and some of the dirtywork putbacks everybody else seems to hang on us, and Thompson, who shows flashes of variety on swooping drives but too often just hangs complacently around the perimeter, and Clark, who runs so hot and cold, along with the bench, which needs to contribute not just energy, but actual points.

I'm not terribly optimistic; having two starting senior guards in crunch time is huge. But it's time to see who can step up. This team is not a roster full of scrubs; time some guys who've been content to let Freeman and Wright get all the ink to grab the opportunity by the and break a lot of Orange hearts.

[HometownHoya]

We are not changing our offense mid season. We need to value every possession on offense and defense. We have shown the defensive ability throughout BE play but we are too lose with the ball. Too often we either jack up a shot early in the shot clock or were forced to take a covered shot at the end of the clock. Obviously a lot of that is due to Cincy's D but it was also the timidness of our shooters. In BE play, you will rarely be WIDE OPEN so we need to take our shots when the present themselves.

Honestly, someone else said it...we need to go back to the 2006 Princeton (not so much the princetown). AFree is more then capable to play the JWall role. JC can play like JS. HT is an improvement over FR AF/DaJuan at the 3. Nate plays like Pat Jr., maybe we need some JG offense from him now? Unfortunately we don't have anyone quite like Roy in the middle...maybe Moses gets 4 minutes a game now to just eat up some time and performs on the big stage? JV gives all he can but as many of us knows he has deficiencies that he battles through and around, obviously he is still our best option at the 5. He needs to be decisive with his moves, if you are going baseline, go quick and take it up hard. If you don't take the shot immediately, use a pump fake! College players get sucked into leaving their feet fairly easily.

Most of all we just need to be crisp and deciscive on offense, with our shots, passes, moves, drives, rebounding...everything.

PS can we stop doing that spin move on the press...we spin away from the defenders allowing them to trap (and typically the steal) because 1) we don't see them and 2) we don't see our open man to break the press or 3) they know a pass is usually coming out of the spin and they break on the pass

[GUJook97]

Feb 24, 2011 0:36:08 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Chris is NOT Harangody. Chris made every player around him better, he creates a good portion of our teams shots either directly or indirectly and he runs the offense. Harangody was also an addition by subtraction for Notre Dame as he was a black hole offensively that was surrounded by good players that weren't getting the touches they should have gotten. Not the case here. The only other player more important to a Georgetown team was Jeff Green in 2007. We have no offense without him. Although our defense may slightly improve.

I agree, but to be honest, if he can really play in 3 1/2 - 4 weeks, do you think we can get by during that period? I choose to believe we can. Let's face it, we aint winning the BET without Chris, but we can certainly beat Syracuse on Senior Day. I am not sure Rutgers couldnt beat Syracuse on Senior Day. We can also spend a week preparing to beat the power house Cincinnati team. And, we certainly can beat a 13 seed in the NCAAs. So, yeah, that's what I choose to believe.

[centercourt400s]

I think the world of Austin... but he's not a point guard. If he spends his time trying to take over for Chris instead of being Austin then we are down two players instead of one.

Obviously JT3 needs to work with the team to compensate of the loss of Wright but he can't retool at this point. Markel steps in to start, Vee gets more time and we continue as best as we can with what we've got. I'm optimistic that Markel can perform in this offense.