kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jun 11, 2015 22:05:58 GMT -5
Are we simply taking on more than we can handle with this early schedule? I wonder what JT--not lll--would think about this tough out of the gate bent that we seem to be on in the last two years? 1. Who cares what he thinks? 2. We all know what he thinks.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jun 11, 2015 22:08:13 GMT -5
The RPI came into use in the 90s and JTII made no effort to revamp his schedules to respond to it. He continued to play teams like St. Leo's - he didn't only schedule really poor teams, he pretty much became the face of uncompetitive scheduling. JTII was an icon and made the program, but defending every stubborn thing he did in the 90's (refusal to recruit, refusal to schedule, refusal to have some semblance of a PR presence/department) just isn't objective. Sorry, TC, that you seem to feel that my comments reflect defending whatever JT II did in the 90's. My point remains that he did what worked for him in developing his teams. Bottom line is whether he scheduled with RPI in mind or not doesn't appear to have negatively impacted his teams' NCAA fortunes. I also believe John had a scheduling philosophy that reflected his commitment to addressing certain issues. Whether you consider that wise or not is certainly your choice. I love that JT III has been more daring with his OOC schedule, but come March this board has could care less what happened in November and December. JT II's teams were known for their spring success; JT III's, not so much. It worked great in the 1980's, but not as well in the 1990's. There's no denying that. Other than Iverson's years, Pops didn't have a lot of spring success in the 1990s. You don't deny this, do you?
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jun 11, 2015 22:10:02 GMT -5
Sorry, TC, that you seem to feel that my comments reflect defending whatever JT II did in the 90's. My point remains that he did what worked for him in developing his teams. Bottom line is whether he scheduled with RPI in mind or not doesn't appear to have negatively impacted his teams' NCAA fortunes. I also believe John had a scheduling philosophy that reflected his commitment to addressing certain issues. Whether you consider that wise or not is certainly your choice. I love that JT III has been more daring with his OOC schedule, but come March this board has could care less what happened in November and December. JT II's teams were known for their spring success; JT III's, not so much. TC - no need to add strawmen arguments that weren't there initially - i.e. recruiting, PR. AGH didn't make those points. However, AGH is right about JT's scheduling track record and that the BE was very different in those days. Just running through a typical BE season would guarantee a decent SOS for the year. Earlier in his career, simply (or not so simply) getting 20 wins would get you to the NCAAs. Later that changed as TC pointed out, with the advent of RPI. OF course, JT made the NCAAs for like 20 years in a row so whatever he was doing was working. His early season opponents, most famously St. Leo's, were an embarrassment and not the least bit interesting to watch. But, as AGH posted, his teams definitely did develop over the course of a season. Legit criticism could be assigned to JT for recruiting in the 90's, and for his offense. For a guy who was such an outstanding defensive coach, he lacked vision when it came to offense... like today's NFL HC Rex Ryan. Another criticism could be his assistants. Keeping those same guys for years who weren't very effective at recruiting, nor at introducing new offensive concepts. But I, for one, give JT some slack on those things because he took a 3-23 team, an ordinary college basketball program, and limited resources, and won a national championship. He also made GU arguably the Top college basketball program in the nation for the decade of the 80s. He easily could have won at least two more titles with a little luck, but was in 3 Final Fours in 4 years just the same. And, he became only the second black HC of a D1 team, and the first to win an NCAA title. He had to breakthrough a ton of prejudice and obstacles to get all that done. He did all that while simultaneously emphasizing education. OK, I guess I got a little carried away with this post. And yes, I wish he didn't schedule so many cupcakes. But we wouldn't have GU basketball today if we hadn't had JT then. I don't think you understand what a strawman argument is. While possibly immaterial (though I think not), TC's point regarding JT2's other deficiencies late in his coaching career are valid.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jun 11, 2015 22:12:05 GMT -5
Don't want to hijack this thread. So I will first say I love the early scheduling. We should play as tough a schedule as possible year in and year out. It only helps and it is great for us fans. As for Thompson's recruiting in the 90's ... it is idiotic to criticize his recruiting. Alonzo Mourning (Class of 1992). Don Reid (long time NBA player (1991 recruit) Othella Harrington (number 2 player in country in recruiting class 1992) and Duane Spencer was a huge recruit (recruiting class 1992). Jahidi White (top 10 in country in 1994). Iverson (1994). Jerome Williams (1994). Victor Page (1995). Shernard Long and Ed Sheffey were both bigtime recruits who did not end up staying (1996). Boumtje (1997) and ANthony Perry (1997, MCdonalds AA and top 4 recruit in nation), Kenny Brunner (probably the best player in the class, and a Samurai sword and Bad Santa). Kevin Braswell (1998, one of Georgetown's leaders all time in scoring, assists, steals and 3 pointers). Lee Scruggs (my alltime favorite Hoya) and Wesley Wilson (top 30) in 1999. Gerald Riley and Mike Sweetney in 2000. Harvey Thomas in 2001 (rivals no. 20 and no. SF in Nation) and Tony Bethel was a huge recruit too. That is some bigtime recruiting in the 90s. By my count that is 6 NBA players (Reid, Harrington, Iverson, Williams, Boumtje, Sweetney) recruited by JT in the 90s after Mourning and several others who had huge potential or were very highly ranked (Page, Long, Perry, Scruggs, Wilson, SPencer, Brunner). The non-factual narrative that JT did not recruit in the 90s needs to end. At least on this site. I thought Hoyatalk was for real fans of the program who actually followed its teams, players and recruiting. There may have been other issues, but recruiting was not one of them. He still is one of our biggest recruiting draws to this day. If anyone is critical of recruiting, the DSR and Copeland classes were two of the worst in the last 40 years and they happened in a row, depleting any depth. If DSR would have left, we would have had one senior Hayes and one junior Copeland, neither of whom had played at all. DSR is all we have for two years of recruiting. I am hoping like everyone else that Hayes develops into a useful senior big as has happened many times before (Boumtje, Watkins, Reid, Vaughn, Sims). You do realize that JT2 stopped coaching in January 1999? Also, I love me some Don Reid, but no one is going to hold him up as a recruiting coup.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Jun 11, 2015 22:23:35 GMT -5
I love that JT III has been more daring with his OOC schedule, but come March this board has could care less what happened in November and December. JT II's teams were known for their spring success; JT III's, not so much. That may be true, but that's why this board often goes off the deep end. Without the November and December schedules we have had the past several years, I am not sure we would be playing in the post-season in March (certainly not as a higher seed). The fact is the NCAA committee loves teams that schedule difficult teams, and JTIII does that. It leads us to getting good seeds in the post-season, even if we haven't done as much with them as HoyaTalk would like. The schedule this year is a bit daunting, but we should also be a very good team. There's also tremendous upside. Assuming we win a few of those tough early season games, we could enter December being top 15 or better. It's not impossible. Lastly, without a great Big East schedule like we had 2013 and before, we need these games to be on the national radar. Nobody will notice if we play High Point or NJIT in December; but they will notice games against teams like Maryland, UConn, and Syracuse.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jun 11, 2015 22:51:43 GMT -5
Are we simply taking on more than we can handle with this early schedule? I wonder what JT--not lll--would think about this tough out of the gate bent that we seem to be on in the last two years? 1. Who cares what he thinks? 2. We all know what he thinks. Not so fast...What does he think?
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Jun 11, 2015 22:58:14 GMT -5
I don't think you understand what a strawman argument is. While possibly immaterial (though I think not), TC's point regarding JT2's other deficiencies late in his coaching career are valid. In your desperate zeal to maintain your reputation as the most contrarian poster on the board, you have once again completely missed the point. No one said anything about whether or not TC's additional points were valid. The relevant point was AvantGuardHoya never made those arguments about recruiting and PR in the first place. TC's attempt to "refute" arguments that were never actually put forth is precisely the definition of the term "Strawman".
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Jun 11, 2015 23:45:08 GMT -5
As for Thompson's recruiting in the 90's ... it is idiotic to criticize his recruiting. Alonzo Mourning (Class of 1992). Don Reid (long time NBA player (1991 recruit) Othella Harrington (number 2 player in country in recruiting class 1992) and Duane Spencer was a huge recruit (recruiting class 1992). Jahidi White (top 10 in country in 1994). Iverson (1994). Jerome Williams (1994). Victor Page (1995). Shernard Long and Ed Sheffey were both bigtime recruits who did not end up staying (1996). Boumtje (1997) and ANthony Perry (1997, MCdonalds AA and top 4 recruit in nation), Kenny Brunner (probably the best player in the class, and a Samurai sword and Bad Santa). Kevin Braswell (1998, one of Georgetown's leaders all time in scoring, assists, steals and 3 pointers). Lee Scruggs (my alltime favorite Hoya) and Wesley Wilson (top 30) in 1999. Gerald Riley and Mike Sweetney in 2000. Harvey Thomas in 2001 (rivals no. 20 and no. SF in Nation) and Tony Bethel was a huge recruit too. That is some bigtime recruiting in the 90s. By my count that is 6 NBA players (Reid, Harrington, Iverson, Williams, Boumtje, Sweetney) recruited by JT in the 90s after Mourning and several others who had huge potential or were very highly ranked (Page, Long, Perry, Scruggs, Wilson, SPencer, Brunner). The non-factual narrative that JT did not recruit in the 90s needs to end. At least on this site. I thought Hoyatalk was for real fans of the program who actually followed its teams, players and recruiting. There may have been other issues, but recruiting was not one of them. Thank you for sharing your point of view playtyler. Multiple viewpoints are always welcome on this board. While you make some legitimate points, I disagree with your conclusions. I would also suggest you reconsider your use of the adjective "idiotic", particularly when your first example of '90s recruiting is Alonzo Mourning who enrolled as a freshman at GU in September, 1988. You then conclude your list with Sweetney, Harvey Thomas, and Tony Bethel, all of whom became Hoyas after JT had stepped down from coaching. Perhaps you are also not familiar with Pops' own comments about being unwilling to spend so much time and effort recruiting "knuckleheads" later in his career. I don't believe anyone made the argument that not a single decent recruit enrolled at GU in the '90s. Yes, there were some very good players, but nowhere near enough, and not up to the standards set earlier in JT's career. And while I can understand how JT supporters (of whom I am clearly one) like to give him credit for "recruiting" Iverson, the truth is JT never did recruit Iverson. Ann Iverson, Allen's mom, recruited JT. Here is another way to evaluate recruiting during the JT era. Below are the top 20 names from GU's top 100 players as presented on the HoyaSaxa.com website. Top 100 Hoyas (first 20 included below) 1. Patrick Ewing (1981-85) 2. Eric Floyd (1978-82) 3. Reggie Williams (1983-87) 4. Alonzo Mourning (1988-92) 5. Allen Iverson (1994-96)6. John Duren (1976-80) 7. Craig Shelton (1976-80) 8. Jim Barry (1962-66)9. Derrick Jackson (1974-78) 10. Mike Sweetney (2000-03)11. David Wingate (1982-86) 12. Charles Smith (1985-89) 13. Othella Harrington (1992-96)14. Michael Jackson (1982-86) 15. Mike Laughna (1969-72)16. Dikembe Mutombo (1988-91) 17. Merlin Wilson (1972-76) 18. Mark Tillmon (1986-90) 19. Bill Martin (1981-85) 20. John Mahnken (1942-43)Of the top 20 all time Hoyas: 4 were pre or post the JT era (names struck through) 2 were 90's JT recruits - including Iverson who was not recruited by JT (names in bold) The other 14 were recruited by JT pre-90s. Or look at it another way. Of the top 10 JT era recruits - through #12 Charles Smith - 9 were recruited pre-90s. 9 of 10. And the only one in the top ten from the 90s was Iverson, who virtually fell into JT's lap after everyone else walked away. It seems pretty clear to me that JT's recruiting efforts seriously declined in the later years of his coaching career compared to his remarkable achievements earlier in his career, as did his success on the court.
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TC
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Post by TC on Jun 12, 2015 8:48:54 GMT -5
My point remains that he did what worked for him in developing his teams. Bottom line is whether he scheduled with RPI in mind or not doesn't appear to have negatively impacted his teams' NCAA fortunes. Did he? Here's the RPI for 1996-1997 : collegerpi.com/subs/97/rpi.htmlThe 1996-1997 team basically skated into the tournament on JT2's reputation. The scheduling practices never caught up to JT2 but they did catch up to Esherick when he scheduled the team out of the 2002-2003 tournament. This is a point I've never bought into whatsoever. What issues was he addressing by scheduling Hawaii-*, St. Leo's, California-Irvine, St. Francis, Sacramento State, or Duqeusne? What issues were addressed by scheduling Morgan State vs. NC A&T or Coppin State? The scheduling complaint I've always had is that JT2 and Esherick's team ignored what the RPI really says - scheduling the better teams from the MEAC is fine. Scheduling the bottom dwellar isn't. JT2's commitment to playing HBCU's was never really an issue - the issue was that they always chose the most uncompetitive one. JT3 on the other hand is a scheduling guru. It's hard to complain about a single thing he's done with the schedule - he always creates SOS monsters, the schedule is never too tough that the team misses the tournament because of it, and it frequently has given us very high seeds.
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seaweed
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Post by seaweed on Jun 12, 2015 9:01:53 GMT -5
I have to say, all the St. Leo's talk is great, but what I really miss is Hawaii-Hilo (twice in 83-84), Hawaii- Mauna Loa, BYU-Hawaii... I mean come on, what better issue to address through scheduling than "I want to spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii."
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jun 12, 2015 9:02:58 GMT -5
My point remains that he did what worked for him in developing his teams. Bottom line is whether he scheduled with RPI in mind or not doesn't appear to have negatively impacted his teams' NCAA fortunes. Did he? Here's the RPI for 1996-1997 : collegerpi.com/subs/97/rpi.htmlThe 1996-1997 team basically skated into the tournament on JT2's reputation. The scheduling practices never caught up to JT2 but they did catch up to Esherick when he scheduled the team out of the 2002-2003 tournament. This is a point I've never bought into whatsoever. What issues was he addressing by scheduling Hawaii-*, St. Leo's, California-Irvine, St. Francis, Sacramento State, or Duqeusne? What issues were addressed by scheduling Morgan State vs. NC A&T or Coppin State? The scheduling complaint I've always had is that JT2 and Esherick's team ignored what the RPI really says - scheduling the better teams from the MEAC is fine. Scheduling the bottom dwellar isn't. JT2's commitment to playing HBCU's was never really an issue - the issue was that they always chose the most uncompetitive one. JT3 on the other hand is a scheduling guru. It's hard to complain about a single thing he's done with the schedule - he always creates SOS monsters, the schedule is never too tough that the team misses the tournament because of it, and it frequently has given us very high seeds. Going to this point, even JT3's teams that missed the tournament were generally only 1 or 2 wins away from getting in, mainly due to their strength of schedule and RPI.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Jun 12, 2015 9:08:42 GMT -5
My point remains that he did what worked for him in developing his teams. Bottom line is whether he scheduled with RPI in mind or not doesn't appear to have negatively impacted his teams' NCAA fortunes. Did he? Here's the RPI for 1996-1997 : collegerpi.com/subs/97/rpi.htmlThe 1996-1997 team basically skated into the tournament on JT2's reputation. The scheduling practices never caught up to JT2 but they did catch up to Esherick when he scheduled the team out of the 2002-2003 tournament. This is a point I've never bought into whatsoever. What issues was he addressing by scheduling Hawaii-*, St. Leo's, California-Irvine, St. Francis, Sacramento State, or Duqeusne? What issues were addressed by scheduling Morgan State vs. NC A&T or Coppin State? The scheduling complaint I've always had is that JT2 and Esherick's team ignored what the RPI really says - scheduling the better teams from the MEAC is fine. Scheduling the bottom dwellar isn't. JT2's commitment to playing HBCU's was never really an issue - the issue was that they always chose the most uncompetitive one. JT3 on the other hand is a scheduling guru. It's hard to complain about a single thing he's done with the schedule - he always creates SOS monsters, the schedule is never too tough that the team misses the tournament because of it, and it frequently has given us very high seeds. I'm ducking my head after I hit "create post," but I've always thought Esh got a slightly bad rap with the schedule. His schedules were much, much more competitive than were JTII's schedules. He certainly never got the point that it was better to schedule teams in the high 200s or low 100s instead of in the 300s (that is, cream puffs that you're still going to beat), but he played a fair number of high-major teams many years. In 2001-02, we played Georgia, at South Carolina, vs. Virginia, and at UCLA. The problem was that we lost three of those four, the rest of our OOC schedule stunk, and the BE was surprisingly weak that year in a way that probably couldn't be predicted, so our winning record in conference (and incredible number of one possession losses) wasn't enough for a bid. That's the year of the infamous "decline the NIT bid" decision. The next year, we played Virginia, Duke and UCLA (one less major conference opponent, but Duke was the top team in America). Again, we lost a lot of close games, but our record in-conference was sufficiently poor (and only three of the BE teams were ranked that year) that we didn't deserve a bid even if our OOC schedule overall was better. Not all of those major conference teams were particularly good (UCLA and Virginia really weren't, but it's not wholly his fault that UCLA had some down years when we happened to schedule them). And obviously no one will confuse GA and SC with basketball powers. But it was still moving in the right direction, I think it's fair to say. (That said, the following year, probably thinking that he needed a bunch of wins to save his job, the schedule gets worse both at the top and the bottom, and the team implodes.) In any event, JTIII gets it in ways that his predecessors did not. Ironically (as someone mentioned), it's resulted in our being somewhat over-seeded come March and led to some of the "we always choke" talk due to the overseeding. I'm happy with it. I think, particularly given where the conference is now, we need a challenging early-conference schedule. Sure, we could lose all of them. But if we do, we'll still have the ability to make up for it in conference. And if we don't make up for it in conference, well, we don't deserve a bid anyway.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2015 9:34:46 GMT -5
Bring em on......
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playtyler
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Post by playtyler on Jun 12, 2015 10:46:50 GMT -5
Thanks SirSaxa for the reasoned response. I would just say that 7 NBA Players (Reid, Harrington, Iverson, White, Williams, Boumtje, Sweetney) and at least ten other very talented recruits (Page, Long, Perry, Scruggs, Wilson, SPencer, Brunner, Braswell, Sheffey, Watkins (he actually played in NBA)) recruited in the 90s is extremely high level. As for when he left I am not really counting Thomas and Bethel, but I believe Sweetney was recruited when Pops was still in the fold.
Just want to let the Board know that the tired narrative of JT not recruiting in the 90s is counter-factual and I believe driven by the same forces and biases which were constantly circling around the fanbase in regards to JT and were at best lazy and at worst something else. Othella Harrington, Alan Iverson, Duane Spencer, ANthony Perry, Victor Page, Jerome Williams, Jahidi White, Wesley Wilson (and Mike Sweetney if JT is credited with this one) were all huge recruits.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Jun 12, 2015 11:23:41 GMT -5
Just want to let the Board know that the tired narrative of JT not recruiting in the 90s is counter-factual and I believe driven by the same forces and biases which were constantly circling around the fanbase in regards to JT and were at best lazy and at worst something else. Othella Harrington, Alan Iverson, Duane Spencer, ANthony Perry, Victor Page, Jerome Williams, Jahidi White, Wesley Wilson (and Mike Sweetney if JT is credited with this one) were all huge recruits. I was not around in this era, so I cannot speak from personal experience. That said, I agree that it's inaccurate to say John Thompson did not recruit in the 1990s. Obviously, he did recruit. I think the bigger gripe among many people is that they feel he could have gone the extra mile and pulled in better recruits given how massively successful the program was in the 1980s. That's always going to be debatable because it's a "what if?" scenario none of us can really know.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Jun 12, 2015 11:56:30 GMT -5
Just want to let the Board know that the tired narrative of JT not recruiting in the 90s is counter-factual and I believe driven by the same forces and biases which were constantly circling around the fanbase in regards to JT and were at best lazy and at worst something else. Othella Harrington, Alan Iverson, Duane Spencer, ANthony Perry, Victor Page, Jerome Williams, Jahidi White, Wesley Wilson (and Mike Sweetney if JT is credited with this one) were all huge recruits. I was not around in this era, so I cannot speak from personal experience. That said, I agree that it's inaccurate to say John Thompson did not recruit in the 1990s. Obviously, he did recruit. I think the bigger gripe among many people is that they feel he could have gone the extra mile and pulled in better recruits given how massively successful the program was in the 1980s. That's always going to be debatable because it's a "what if?" scenario none of us can really know. Bingo right here.. Most of us old timers remember Grant Hill as the biggest recruiting loss but Pops not going after Kenny Anderson was big too.. The Hoyas could have easily have had a team of Mourning, Anderson & Hill.. Scary good..
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jun 12, 2015 13:24:06 GMT -5
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playtyler
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Post by playtyler on Jun 12, 2015 13:58:31 GMT -5
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TC
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Post by TC on Jun 12, 2015 13:58:47 GMT -5
I'm ducking my head after I hit "create post," but I've always thought Esh got a slightly bad rap with the schedule. His schedules were much, much more competitive than were JTII's schedules. He certainly never got the point that it was better to schedule teams in the high 200s or low 100s instead of in the 300s (that is, cream puffs that you're still going to beat), but he played a fair number of high-major teams many years. Esh's schedules were significantly worse than JT2's. They might have been a better ticket package, but they weren't tougher. Thompson 1993-1994 SOS 27 1994-1995 SOS 40 1995-1996 SOS 22 1996-1997 SOS 89 1997-1998 SOS 79 1998-1999 SOS 43 Esherick 1999-2000 SOS 53 2000-2001 SOS 105 2001-2002 SOS 62 2002-2003 SOS 72 2003-2004 SOS 109
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FrazierFanatic
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jun 12, 2015 14:17:59 GMT -5
Let's not forget that Hoya basketball was a sociocultural phenomenon in the 80's, fueled by Pops' larger-than-life presence, as well as his philosophies on and off the court, all of which certainly had an impact on recruiting, and in turn allowed a private school from DC to compete and even dominate the national scene. The cultural potential for that type of impact diminished throughout the 90's, and we will never see that again, certainly not at anything approaching that level.
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