Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Mar 23, 2011 15:57:29 GMT -5
JT3 has 5 NCAA appearances in the last 6 years
3 BET Finals in last 5 years.
NCAA 3 seed and 6 seed in last two years.
Top 10-15 ranking most of this year, and against the #1 or #2 toughest schedule in the country
Zero scandals, NCAA regulation issues, etc.
Oh, and two major injuries to his two best players as the season wound down.
Just to name a few things.
Sir Saxa raises a very good point. While this is my first post to this message board, I have been reading HoyaTalk regularly for a while. I think that all of the talk about John Thompson III and his success as a coach needs some perspective.
First, as Sir Saxa pointed out above, Georgetown's college basketball program has seen its fair share of success over the last several years. Sure, the last few years have been disappointing in the post-season, but our program has had more success than most.
Second, John Thompson III truly transformed the basketball program after Craig Esherick was fired. As a graduate of the class of 2003, I had to endure the Esherick era, and it was not pretty. Overall interest in the team on the campus was very low. People did talk about the good old days of the 1980s and parts of the 1990s, but the general sense was that those days had passed and the program would never get back to that place.
John Thompson III took the program from being on the verge of being irrelevant to a program that is an annual contender in the Big East and a pretty good bet to make the NCAA tournament. Sure, we have not finished first in the league every year and our post-season performance has been disappointing, but we are still far better off than we would have been under Esherick or most other another coach. Of course, I still want to see improvement and I would expect John Thompson III to take actions to improve the team's performance.
Third, John Thompson III really hasn't been the head coach long enough for us to evaluate him perfectly. Coaches in professional sports get a lot more scrutiny, but there is also a lot more information available about them and their teams. To a large degree, the inner workings of the team are hidden from public view. As many have pointed out, John Thompson Jr. did not have a huge amount of success in his first few years as coach, either. This is not a situation where the coach has had a number of losing seasons in a row. Quite the contrary, we have had a number of good seasons and a number of successes. The last few years have been disappointing in the NCAA tournament, but when we look back on this 10-20 years from now, it could look like a small hiccup.
Fourth, for those of you who think we would be better off with a different coaching staff, who exactly do you have in mind? I would argue that John Thompson III has been more successful and has a better background than anybody that would be a replacement. In fact, I think our program is blessed in that we have a very good coach that is young and is likely to be around for many years to come.
While I love our program, does anyone seriously think any of the "big name" coaches would (a) be available and (b) want to come here? We have great tradition, but we lack the facilities and money that other schools devote to their programs. Moreover, would we even want somebody like Ken Calipari or Jim Calhoun who would be likely to do shady things and potentially get the university in trouble? I don't think so. I think John Thompson III is the perfect fit for our program. He is classy and gets classy players for our team that generally make the school proud. Is there room for adjustments and improvement? Of course! I am not saying the man is flawless.
Fifth, not every team will make it far into the NCAA tournament every year - even good teams. Was Pittsburgh's season a total failure because they lost in the 2nd round? I don't think so. To some extent, the NCAA tournament is like playing poker - you can do certain things to improve your odds of winning, but in the end, the randomness of luck and circumstance play a role in determining the outcome.
It is also unrealistic to expect the Hoyas to make the Sweet Sixteen or Final Four every year. Even Duke had a rough stretch in the 1990s. Moreover, Duke really shouldn't be used as a basis for comparison. Would it be great for our program to have the success they have had? Of course. We should certainly strive for that, but we also need to be realistic, as well.
I am certainly not an apologist for the 2010-2011 team or John Thompson III. I am not trying to say he is perfect. I think Thompson could definitely improve as an in-game coach (really, all coaches have areas where they can and should continue to grow with the passage of time), and like many on this message board, I would like to see more use of our talented freshman next year.
Of course, we always need to be improving our recruiting, as well, though here I think Thompson is handicapped by our lack of facilities and the perception (and reality) that a player isn't going to come to Georgetown, major in Physical Education or Sports Management, and easily graduate in 4 years. While that might mean we'll never be stacked with "one and done" recruits, having high impact recruits like Greg Monroe should certainly be the priority.
While I was very disappointed by our loss to VCU (and Ohio last year), I still think the program is headed in the right direction and I am looking forward to seeing our new freshman in 2011-2012. I think we have the potential to exceed expectations next year and have a great team in 2012-2013.