2016-17 GU Sports Discussion

[DFW HOYA]

Proverbially speaking, it's been a bad year for Georgetown sports.

Yes, the Thompson Center opened, and all sorts of wacky pre-game promotions got plenty of social media attention if indifferent fan response.

But 2016-17 may go down as a year where no men's team playing a round robin schedule had a winning record and as few as three teams overall:

Baseball: 24-20 (5**)
M Basketball: 15-18
Football: 3-8
M Lacrosse 4-10
M Soccer: 6-9-2
M Tennis: 8-14

W Basketball: 17-13
Field Hockey: 5-13
W Lacrosse: 9-8 (entering BE tournament)
Softball: 11-34
W Soccer: 20-3-3
W Tennis: 13-6
Volleyball: 7-24

Yes, there are some here who only see one team that matters, and I can't change your mind on that. However, the campus is not well served by coaches and teams that underperform across the board, and it seeps into a student mentality that sports aren't worth their time, basketball included.

For years, the prevailing wisdom was that the larger state schools of the Big East were too much for Georgetown to compete against outside basketball and the "country club" sports (lacrosse, rowing, sailing). Four years later, one would then assume GU would dominate the smaller Big East, but it hasn't happened.

**(The (5) for baseball represents its need to win five of its remaining 12 games to achieve its first winning record in 31 years. That is has endured 30 consecutive losing seasons is another topic.)

[TC]

I'm going full Dan Shaughnessy and suggesting it is "The Curse of JT3". Not sure why eldritch Princeton magic does not affect women's soccer.

[iowa80]

Does lacrosse exist so we can't feel that bad about the decline of basketball?

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Sure, if you ignore that
- Women's soccer made it to the NCAA final four.
- Women's Golf won their first BE Tournament, to get to their first ever NCAA
- Men's and Women's swimming and diving teams both finished second in Big East
- Men's Indoor Track & Field team finished 16th at NCAA indoor championships, highest in more than 20 years. Also finished 21st in cross country (not historically high for the program, but still top 25).
- Sailing team won another national championship.
Then it was a terrible year.

I'm not arguing that this was a banner year for Hoyas teams, but if one out of the 4 basketball and lacrosse teams had a good season, (and especially if two of those teams did) this would feel a lot different.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

May 4, 2017 15:02:28 GMT -5 TrueHoyaBlue said:

Sure, if you ignore that
- Women's soccer made it to the NCAA final four.
- Women's Golf won their first BE Tournament, to get to their first ever NCAA
- Men's and Women's swimming and diving teams both finished second in Big East
- Men's Indoor Track & Field team finished 16th at NCAA indoor championships, highest in more than 20 years. Also finished 21st in cross country (not historically high for the program, but still top 25).
- Sailing team won another national championship.
Then it was a terrible year.

I'm not arguing that this was a banner year for Hoyas teams, but if one out of the 4 basketball and lacrosse teams had a good season, (and especially if two of those teams did) this would feel a lot different.

Thank you!

Can always count on DFW to paint the worst possible picture.

[DFW HOYA]

May 4, 2017 16:08:32 GMT -5 HoyaSinceBirth said:

Thank you!

Can always count on DFW to paint the worst possible picture.

No, thank you.

I was referring to team sports. Track and sailing always hold their own, though the "national championship" isn't that remarkable given that there can be up to 12 different "national champions" in sailing every year.

The point was that men's sports at Georgetown are struggling. If you want to hang this season's plaudits on women's golf and women's soccer, go ahead. When men's soccer goes from 18 straight unbeaten in 2015 to posting an under .500 record in 2016, that's unexpected. When men's lacrosse is a combined 6-22 over the last two seasons, that's underperforming. Either way, Georgetown can do better.

[The Man]

DFW is wrong again. At least in sailing there are 2 nationals championships in Women's sailing one in the fall and one in the spring. Coed sailing has two in the fall and two in the spring. If you paid attention you would know that they are all in different disciplines. Think cross country and indoor and outdoor track. Those are all track and field but they are different disciplines. And yes winning a national championship is pretty remarkable especially considering the resources and location of Georgetown. Instead of looking with disdain at what sailing has done over the last 29 years maybe people should pay attention and try to emulate it. Either way don't denigrate the accomplishments of that team.

May 4, 2017 19:29:00 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

May 4, 2017 16:08:32 GMT -5 HoyaSinceBirth said:

Thank you!

Can always count on DFW to paint the worst possible picture.

No, thank you.

I was referring to team sports. Track and sailing always hold their own, though the "national championship" isn't that remarkable given that there can be up to 12 different "national champions" in sailing every year.

The point was that men's sports at Georgetown are struggling. If you want to hang this season's plaudits on women's golf and women's soccer, go ahead. When men's soccer goes from 18 straight unbeaten in 2015 to posting an under .500 record in 2016, that's unexpected. When men's lacrosse is a combined 6-22 over the last two seasons, that's underperforming. Either way, Georgetown can do better.

[DFW HOYA]

May 4, 2017 19:58:45 GMT -5 The Man said:

DFW is wrong again. At least in sailing there are 2 nationals championships in Women's sailing one in the fall and one in the spring. Coed sailing has two in the fall and two in the spring. If you paid attention you would know that they are all in different disciplines. Think cross country and indoor and outdoor track. Those are all track and field but they are different disciplines. And yes winning a national championship is pretty remarkable especially considering the resources and location of Georgetown. Instead of looking with disdain at what sailing has done over the last 29 years maybe people should pay attention and try to emulate it. Either way don't denigrate the accomplishments of that team.

I stand corrected on the double counting, and that's not a knock on sailing. If the rest of GU teams were as proficient, imagine the possibilities.

[Nevada Hoya]

I think the men's soccer deserve a break. Last year they lost the core of their great team and many are playing in the pros. This year was definitely a rebuilding one for the Hoyas, and I am sure they will be back to a winning year in the fall.

[Filo]

May 4, 2017 19:29:00 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

May 4, 2017 16:08:32 GMT -5 HoyaSinceBirth said:

Thank you!

Can always count on DFW to paint the worst possible picture.

No, thank you.

I was referring to team sports. Track and sailing always hold their own, though the "national championship" isn't that remarkable given that there can be up to 12 different "national champions" in sailing every year.

The point was that men's sports at Georgetown are struggling. If you want to hang this season's plaudits on women's golf and women's soccer, go ahead. When men's soccer goes from 18 straight unbeaten in 2015 to posting an under .500 record in 2016, that's unexpected. When men's lacrosse is a combined 6-22 over the last two seasons, that's underperforming. Either way, Georgetown can do better.

As Nevada said in a subsequent post, I am willing to give Men's Soccer a pass. They lost a ton of talent. We will see how they do moving forward. Hopefully, this year was just an anomaly. We will see.

To me, Lacrosse is inexplicable. It is the kind of sport that GU should be dominating in, as many of the top players are from high academic schools that feed into Georgetown. Add that one of the hotbeds is right in GU's backyard (Maryland), and two other hotbeds are notoriously strong feeder areas for Georgetown (Philadelphia/NJ and Long Island), and it really is beyond inexplicable.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

I agree with Filo. I never did really follow lacrosse but had friends on the team. How far they have fallen is very odd. We fit the profile of main lacrosse schools, mid-atlantic, preppy, high academic....it just doesn't add up.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

May 4, 2017 19:29:00 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Either way, Georgetown can do better.

I don't think anyone would argue that point. But there's plenty of space between that and "Worst sports year ever."

The spectator sports are definitely down. But I'm sure we've had a number of years that didn't feature a national championship or 5-6 teams playing well above their historic/recent norms.

[McBricks]

I have a nephew that plays lax at Yale and he was saying that teams don't even want to schedule Georgetown any longer because it doesn't help their schedule because they are so bad. Ouch.

[iowa80]

May 5, 2017 21:32:22 GMT -5 McBricks said:

I have a nephew that plays lax at Yale and he was saying that teams don't even want to schedule Georgetown any longer because it doesn't help their schedule because they are so bad. Ouch.

Having been a fan during the successful Urick years, I'd love to know the story behind the story of our fall from grace.  Not to encourage speculation or anything, but going from a power to a less-than-also-ran usually can be traced to something.  There's probably at least a weak analogy to be drawn to the post-Iverson drop off in basketball.

[McBricks]

May 5, 2017 21:48:50 GMT -5 iowa80 said:

May 5, 2017 21:32:22 GMT -5 McBricks said:

I have a nephew that plays lax at Yale and he was saying that teams don't even want to schedule Georgetown any longer because it doesn't help their schedule because they are so bad. Ouch.

Having been a fan during the successful Urick years, I'd love to know the story behind the story of our fall from grace.  Not to encourage speculation or anything, but going from a power to a less-than-also-ran usually can be traced to something.  There's probably at least a weak analogy to be drawn to the post-Iverson drop off in basketball.

I'd like to know what the hell happened as well. There is absolutely no reason why Georgetown should be at least competitive in lacrosse.

[reformation]

Whether this is the worst year ever(might be) I think DFW's basic message that GU sports are in general underperforming their potential is accurate. I think the reasons for the underperformance vary by sport:
Mens Soccer: Random downturn-expect a rebound
Women's Track: Unknown, could be new coach, random issues with athletes, hard to say but the falloff from recent elite performances is dramatic
Men's & Women's Lax: Long term issue--would guess its coaching for both squads--almost any other place would have made staff changes a long time ago
Women's Volleyball: Structural. Program over resourced versus other programs-really no prospect of natl level of success, takes a lot of scholarships in a sport where gtown is not well suited to compete that could be better utilized elsewhere -virtually none of our peers focus on the sport, legacy resource allocation from days where there were fewer women's sports-Admin knows this but reluctant to change
Baseball & Softball: Structural, Gtwn not well suited to perform at elite level. Sort of half resourced but really should not be a focus --not a focus sport for our peers.

Sports with some improvement and high potential but have structural barriers(gtown's poor resource allocation) to elite success
Mens & Women's rowing: Focus sport for our peers. Women lack scholarships and men recruiting support to be elite.
Men's & women's tennis: limited support-several ivies have top 20 squads. Gtown could if properly resourced
Men's & women's golf: Less of a focus sport for our peers than tennis (due to geography). Gtown could be very good with scholarships

Mens Track: A rebound after a number of years of underperformance, still not as good as we have been at times in the past but pretty good
Men's & Women's Swimming: Not really resourced or competitive at a high level. Probably would take a lot of extra resources to even compete at Ivy level, not sure that makes sense

Simple message-allocate resources strategically and make common sense coaching moves and we'd have a much better overall program. Its not that hard, but we have to be willing to make changes in staff in resource allocation--its not just a question of more $, that's to some degree an excuse for not having the guts to make difficult decisions. Gtown argues against making changes because it feels its totally "unique"--alll that does in practice is assure that we have no real standards. Schools like Northwestern and Duke have built up their ancillary sports one by one over time focusing on the ones where they felt that they could compete at a high level, basically emulating stanford in a small way--we could be a smaller version of the same thing

[aleutianhoya]

As for men's lacrosse specifically, I think it's been a slow march the wrong the wrong direction rather than any key event. They made the Final Four and then were consistently a power for the next five years (Final Eight each year) but never got back over the hump. I'm sure that had an impact. Then they spent a number of years where they frankly got screwed by the selection committee. But no bids for a few years has an impact. Then a number of years where they were competitive but not really contending. Again, an impact. And now a few years like this one. A slow march the wrong way.

As for the others, volleyball is the only one where you could reasonably reallocate. We would have to do it to another women's sport (rowing?). On the men's side, I'm not sure where you would reallocate from without dropping football. Baseball and swimming and crew and tennis and golf don't get much resource now. Obviously not basketball or soccer. And I don't think lax or track makes sense.

[Nevada Hoya]

As far as women's track, probably a combination of factors - three coaches in five or six years, graduation (or ending of eligibility) of key runners, redshirting of top runners, and slow progression of top recruits. Throw in the injuries that often happens to track runners and emphasis of male and not female runners in the past one or two years. I don't know if this was intentional or happened because top recruits decided to go elsewhere. Some top middle distance female runners are coming for next year, but the XC team is lacking.

[reformation]

May 6, 2017 10:31:58 GMT -5 aleutianhoya said:

As for men's lacrosse specifically, I think it's been a slow march the wrong the wrong direction rather than any key event. They made the Final Four and then were consistently a power for the next five years (Final Eight each year) but never got back over the hump. I'm sure that had an impact. Then they spent a number of years where they frankly got screwed by the selection committee. But no bids for a few years has an impact. Then a number of years where they were competitive but not really contending. Again, an impact. And now a few years like this one. A slow march the wrong way.

As for the others, volleyball is the only one where you could reasonably reallocate. We would have to do it to another women's sport (rowing?). On the men's side, I'm not sure where you would reallocate from without dropping football. Baseball and swimming and crew and tennis and golf don't get much resource now. Obviously not basketball or soccer. And I don't think lax or track makes sense.

Reallocating the schollies for volleyball/softball/baseball would fund women's rowing, tennis, and golf. If we actually exited some subset of volleyball baseball softball that could fund schollies for mens golf tennis rowing etc.. Both lax programs are already fully funded, just need a change in coaching direction. Women's track also already fully funded. Probably just wait and see what to do. Assume soccer will turn around. Pick what you want but just do it strategically and create excellent programs.

[seaweed]

www.guhoyas.com/sports/m-basebl/recaps/050617aaa.html