DFW HOYA
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,749
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Post by DFW HOYA on Aug 18, 2019 9:13:05 GMT -5
But program success can’t be the narrative, right? Because both programs have pretty much the same (tourney appearance/“success”) track record over the past 11-12 years. I think this is a great topic. Program support is much more about association and less about success than we think. The Dallas Cowboys have won a total of five playoff games in 23 years (gulp...) but are still the highest valued franchise in professional sports. You see a Cowboys-Rams game in LA and there are going to be 25,000 or 30,000 fans in blue and silver, and 95 percent of them aren't from Texas, but places like Covina and Ontario and Garden Grove. Win or lose, they want to be associated with it. By contrast, the Georgetown fan base more closely resembles the Redskins-- older, more regional, and a little beaten down. Today's millenial sports fan in the Washington area is more likely to be #allcaps than #httr, and the hockey fan base stands in marked contrast to the non-gentrified Washington of decades ago. Those who rock the red aren't exactly showing up in burgundy and gold...or blue and gray. But it's more than local. For a national school, Georgetown isn't exactly taking over half-empty arenas in Chicago or Northern New Jersey with subway alumni, and when you saw the attendance at the Bermuda games (one listed at 90, the other 100), the stands weren't filled with local Hoya fans, either. As to Memphis, this thought. In a 21-13 regular season and its first post-season bid since 2014, attendance for Memphis home games increased from 6,225 per game to 14,065. In a 19-13 regular season and first post season bid since 2015, Georgetown's attendance actually fell from 7,531 to 7,212. It's more than wins and losses here.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Aug 18, 2019 9:21:51 GMT -5
That wasn't really true at all - it's something that's been debunked multiple times but some folks keep perpetuating it. Right up there with "The Princeton can't come back" and "we had so many close calls against bad teams under JTIII". None of those are really true at all. I'm hopeful for this year because Yurt looks like a legit replacement for Govan, our freshmen guards are now sophomores, and Ewing has definitely started to bring in athletes to play defense. That said, the competition here was pretty horrible from the highlights I saw, so the usual summer calls of "we're really going to run" and "we're so deep" are pretty pointless. Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. But to run like we did in the Bahamas, we'd have to force turnovers -- something Ewing's team have not done yet. And let's see how our new players perform against Big East players before thinking we can shuttle them out there. I know, curmudgeon. I am actually excited, but I'm just not sure Big East teams are going to dribble into our size with a 5'7" guard and try to post them up like I saw on the highlights. It was absolutely true that games that should have been over did not feel over to the opponents or the fans. An 8 point lead with 8 minutes to play....sure you can squeeze the air out of the ball....or you can make 2-3 bonehead mistakes and the game is virtually tied. In contrast, a 20 point lead request 6-10 mistakes. Quite frankly, I think, based on what I saw—the little I saw—Yurt is improvement on the center position. Much more versatile, much more energy, and consistency.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Aug 18, 2019 9:28:26 GMT -5
Just let them see you win, baby! Let them see us win. Everyone loves a winner.
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SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
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Post by SirSaxa on Aug 18, 2019 10:58:56 GMT -5
Just let them see you win, baby! Let them see us win. Everyone loves a winner. Agree - ESPECIALLY when that winning team is also playing a very exciting and entertaining brand of Basketball.
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OldHoyafan
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,387
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Post by OldHoyafan on Aug 18, 2019 11:50:17 GMT -5
Just let them see you win, baby! Let them see us win. Everyone loves a winner. Agree - ESPECIALLY when that winning team is also playing a very exciting and entertaining brand of Basketball. Exactly! Majority of fans have a love/hate relationship with dominant teams. They love to see the dominant play, but hate that one team always wins so they boo the dominant team over the underdog. The Yankees were like that in Pro baseball, the Celtics were like that in pro BB, the Hoyas were like that in college ball in the 80’s and now it’s Duke and Kentucky. These dominant teams however drew near or capacity crowds wherever they played because even though the home fans would boo them, thy deep down loved to see the dominant play. Ewing is building a team that will not only win, but win in a dominant style with a fast paced offense and a stifling defense. If he is able to maintain the current level of recruiting, the Hoyas will regain that love/hate relationship with the national BB audience. We Hoya fans will revel in the hate but respect the Hoyas will have once again.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Aug 18, 2019 15:46:50 GMT -5
Agree - ESPECIALLY when that winning team is also playing a very exciting and entertaining brand of Basketball. Exactly! Majority of fans have a love/hate relationship with dominant teams. They love to see the dominant play, but hate that one team always wins so they boo the dominant team over the underdog. The Yankees were like that in Pro baseball, the Celtics were like that in pro BB, the Hoyas were like that in college ball in the 80’s and now it’s Duke and Kentucky. These dominant teams however drew near or capacity crowds wherever they played because even though the home fans would boo them, thy deep down loved to see the dominant play. Ewing is building a team that will not only win, but win in a dominant style with a fast paced offense and a stifling defense. If he is able to maintain the current level of recruiting, the Hoyas will regain that love/hate relationship with the national BB audience. We Hoya fans will revel in the hate but respect the Hoyas will have once again. Well, I can still remember the Georgetown gear in the 80s and 90s. Everybody loved the Ewing era. Georgetown was on the map because of its winning ways and toughness. Have a very good feeling we are going to get back some of the magic.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Aug 18, 2019 15:48:38 GMT -5
I think we are all in agreement. Imagine that on Hoya Talk?
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Aug 18, 2019 15:56:11 GMT -5
This the same team we just beat? I believe it was the Bahamian Army team😉
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2019 20:49:01 GMT -5
But program success can’t be the narrative, right? Because both programs have pretty much the same (tourney appearance/“success”) track record over the past 11-12 years. I think this is a great topic. Program support is much more about association and less about success than we think. The Dallas Cowboys have won a total of five playoff games in 23 years (gulp...) but are still the highest valued franchise in professional sports. You see a Cowboys-Rams game in LA and there are going to be 25,000 or 30,000 fans in blue and silver, and 95 percent of them aren't from Texas, but places like Covina and Ontario and Garden Grove. Win or lose, they want to be associated with it. By contrast, the Georgetown fan base more closely resembles the Redskins-- older, more regional, and a little beaten down. Today's millenial sports fan in the Washington area is more likely to be #allcaps than #httr, and the hockey fan base stands in marked contrast to the non-gentrified Washington of decades ago. Those who rock the red aren't exactly showing up in burgundy and gold...or blue and gray. But it's more than local. For a national school, Georgetown isn't exactly taking over half-empty arenas in Chicago or Northern New Jersey with subway alumni, and when you saw the attendance at the Bermuda games (one listed at 90, the other 100), the stands weren't filled with local Hoya fans, either. As to Memphis, this thought. In a 21-13 regular season and its first post-season bid since 2014, attendance for Memphis home games increased from 6,225 per game to 14,065. In a 19-13 regular season and first post season bid since 2015, Georgetown's attendance actually fell from 7,531 to 7,212. It's more than wins and losses here. I just don’t think the Georgetown fan base is - or frankly was ever - made up of many “attending athletic events is part of the culture” types. People want to be associated with winners, so Hoya Paranoia in the 80s, Iverson in the 90s, even the bemoaned Prince-town circa 06-11 put butts in the seats. Students want to go to something where they aren’t alone, GU alum Wall St bros want to trash talk their NJ private school colleague who went to Nova, alums nation/worldwide love something to cheer about. If there is any attachment at Georgetown, men’s basketball is the big one (yeah, soccer gets cool for a while, and I know you and others beat the football drum). This might sum it up best: while attending a new student send off event last week, I was chatting up one of the moms and asked if they had other kids in college. She said that her oldest decided to go to a big state SEC school because he/she was into “face painting school colors and screaming their heads off for the school team”. The child going to Georgetown was interested in, well, not that. Two extremes, perhaps, but part of the issue. You’re right about the aging of a fan base who has seen what real success looks like. Heck, I’m a pre-Internet guy and chose Georgetown pretty much due to seeing on TV from afar a team of hard-a$$ players who were winners. Not a lot of us left, and most going to Georgetown aren’t choosing for that reason anyway. Georgetown men’s basketball might have had a shot entering the 90s to be the Raiders or the Cowboys. That’s how big the brand was. Instead Duke became that team ...
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MCIGuy
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Anyone here? What am I supposed to update?
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Post by MCIGuy on Aug 19, 2019 1:33:48 GMT -5
So far as Memphis is concerned:
1-The city is the one part of Tennessee more basketball-driven than football-driven 2-the school itself is not too difficult to get into unlike Georgetown and therefore all sorts of people from diverse corners of the city and state attend the university, unlike Gtown, which means everyone has family, friends, neighbors who went to the school which creates this natural community for the school and an affinity for its programs (again, unlike Georgetown). 3-Because its a big public school it produces far more potential fans through alums each year compared to Georgetown, and those alum/fans become promoters of the school and its teams by spreading their passion of them to loved ones, co-workers, relatives, future spouses, future children, etc. 4-Far less things to do in Memphis compared to Washington, DC, far less things to keep you occupied, far less teams (professional and college) to follow. That means the Memphis Tigers basketball team has more of its city market gobbled up than Georgetown could ever possibly have for DC, even if the program had been as successful as Duke.
When it comes to Villanova, well, it has gone to three Final Fours since the Hoyas last appearance in a Final Four in 2007. It has also won three national championships since Georgetown won its lone title in 1984. And since the formation of the New Big East it has won almost every single conference regular season title and tournament title. So there should be no surprise it has twice the following. Heck, at this rate it should have more.
The problem with Georgetown is its connective tissue with the DC metropolitan area. As a school it is somewhat isolated because its resides in an area dominated by an elite upper class who seem, even to this day with city-wide gentrification, removed from the rest of the city residents and definitely was clearly removed from the city back during the basketball team’s heyday in the 1980s, when much of the city of DC was in a terrible predicament. And the students who attended Georgetown have no natural bond with the DMV because the vast majority of them don’t have any roots with the city, the area. There may be more foreign students at Georgetown than there are those from the DC metropolitan area. This is in stark contrast to the University of Maryland who has a far, far larger percentage of students with DC area (and Baltimore) ties. As a result there is not the human infrastructure in place for the Georgetown basketball program to generate the type of expansive fanbase that you find for programs like Memphis.
There are two private universities that have escaped scenarios like these and enjoyed the support of a huge fanbase over the course of decades: Notre Dame and Duke. Notre Dame though is a huge university, one that can match state schools in terms of size. Most of all for the longest time (maybe still to this day) they have benefited as being the unofficial school of Irish Americans and to a lesser extent as the unofficial school of Catholics. This meant that people who didn’t even attend the school but fell under those two categories would develop some affinity for the school and its teams. This helped give Notre Dame a huge resource of fan support in the Northeast. Duke didn’t have such advantages and in fact resided in a state with two huge state universities who dominated the local support (UNC and NC State). It was a highly regarded academic school in an enviable conference that from time to time had some major success, particularly its basketball program. But then K came. And after awhile he grew an empire that has lasted for roughly four decades. Imagine if Georgetown had remained as relevant over 40 years as it had been in the mid-to late 80s. That’s pretty much what you have gotten with Duke under K. Because of this Duke became a true blueblood and a brand name. K became a brand name too. Georgetown had been a brand name once but think of it as like a Circuit City to Duke’s Amazon. Not an entirely accurate comparison because Amazon hasn’t been around as long, but the point is that everyone knows the Amazon brand and most even use Amazon services.
Meanwhile they may have fond memories of that Circuit City place and think to themselves how its such a shame what happened to it. That’s Georgetown hoops in a nutshell. People who have been on the Earth long enough to recall the glory days of Georgetown basketball may every once awhile think “whatever happened to them?”. I recently visited a Memphis Tigers board and saw a brief conversation started by one fan who was shocked that Georgetown had a white player (Mac) in its lineup. Other fans had to explain who he was and gush over him. But I couldn’t help thinking about how Georgetown has been so far out of the consciousness of both casual fan and basketball enthusiasts, that people weren’t even aware that the internet sensation Mac McClung has been starting for the Hoyas for a year.
Another point that needs to be addressed is that for a stretch of let's say 14 or so years (from the Ewing era to the short run of Iverson), Georgetown basketball had one major advantage in its backpocket: it was the unofficial team of African Americans. The style of play and the fact that its coach was this big, unapologetic black man who himself became a brand name, were the reasons why it drew such a large African American following. Oh, and the winning too. Thompson was the first black coach to win the NCAA title. Now a lot of this is before my time because I did not start following the team until I became a teen, right around the time Alonzo Mourning committed to the program. But I’ve have heard and read stuff about some Georgetown alum were uncomfortable with the idea of Georgetown being black America’s team. They were also weary of the issue that many African Americans and white Americans were under the impression that Georgetown was a predominantly black school because of the racial makeup of the coach and the players. This gave Georgetown cultural legitimacy in urban areas all across the USA, a huge fanbase of people who had no ties, in terms of both school and geography, with Georgetown University. And no better way for African Americans to display their Hoya love than to wear the colors, most specifically the Georgetown Starter jackets which unfortunately some kids were killed over and in the case of the “soldiers” who worked for drug kingpin Rayful Edmond were covered in when buried after meeting their demise. I read somewhere in the early 90s that Georgetown Hoyas clothing was the number one selling sports apparel in America. It had been like that for a time for stretch of years. This was without the benefit of being a large school or having a D1 football program. This was despite the fact that the team was hated largely by white America, or specifically white American sports fans.
This is not to say that there weren’t black fans who hated the Hoyas. They were but they were mostly supporters of real rival teams like the Terrapins, Syracuse fans, St. John’s etc. But the true hatred came from white American sports fans , even white fans of teams that didn’t play Georgetown. I’m certain there were plenty of white people spread across America who did like Georgetown (like Rex Chapman), but it seemed as if the main white supporters of the team were white alum and white students of the school itself (although, yes, I know about white alum/students of Georgetown who did not support Thompson and his teams because of the lack of white players and because they didn’t think racially or academically, the players of his teams sufficiently represented the university). So this leads me to believe the apparel sales I had mentioned were the result of African Americans buying the Georgetown gear. That type of advantage, being that beloved by a specific racial/ethnic demographic, is one that Georgetown no longer has. And its doubtful it can ever happen again no matter how well Ewing does as coach (but maybe I’m wrong).
Ironically while the Hoyas were beloved by African Americans, especially those living in DC, it was playing in arena located a distance away from Chocolate City. Granted the Capital Center was resided in a predominantly black suburb, but Landover was a wasteland and highly inaccessible considering the lack of public transportation. Plus there was pretty much nothing out there other than the Capital Center. When the Hoyas moved to a new building in DC (the MCI Arena hence my screen name), it was moving its games into a city with changing demographics all the while dealing with the changing fortunes of its program. The program would start falling on hard times with occasional success thrown in here and there. And it was doing so in time in which all the local oxygen for college hoops was being spent on Gary Williams' Maryland Terrapin basketball program. Eventually Craig Esherick would be let go and John Thompson III would be brought in. And quickly III had some success. That success would eventually lead to better gate attendance. Sellouts were still rare but there were a few under III and a lot more games in which 80% plus capacity was achieved. Nothing to sneeze at. But a point that I and a few made way back then was that the key to filling out the arena more was by exciting people who had no ties to the university as well as exciting those who were not already diehard fans. In other words the fanbase needed to be expanded again because there weren't enough Georgetown alums to get the new venue rocking every game. It was possible in my estimation to bring back not just many of those black fans of the program but to reel in a new generation of black fans of the area. Most importantly I felt the bad blood between the program and white America had for the most part vanished and that while III’s teams still didn’t have a lot of white players, III and his players were not the in-your-face types who would turn off potential new white fans. And of course if III did well he could bring in folks from all races, not just black and white, into the fold.
But to do this I thought III needed two important ingredients: sustained high levels of winning and an exciting product. The former didn’t occur. Even before the Hoyas started losing so badly during the regular season, they were doing something worse by losing to lower seeds in the first rounds of the NCAA tournament. In a time in which regular season college hoops don’t mean as much to sports fan and the tourney was all that mattered, getting upset time and time again hurt the brand. Period. However the style of play may have done the program in on all fronts. III early on kept insisting that the Princeton offense was just as well represented by the high octane offense of the Chris Webber Sacramento Kings as it was to the much slower offense of the program of the school it was named after. III hinted at going in the direction of the Kings, the reality was he had no true interest in that. It was clear by how the team played and practiced. III seemed to have such an aversion to doing anything quick on the court that a reporter one time infamously reported that the Hoyas were the one team of dozens he visited during pre-season practice in which they didn’t work on the fastbreak at all. At all.
This topic has led to a lot of infighting on the boards, often leading to some folks cherry picking the handful of high profile games in which the Hoyas scored 75 or more points. I’m not trying to get into that debate again. What I will say though is that for those outside the Georgetown fandom and those outside of a few broadcasters who showered praise on the beauty of the Princeton offense, the majority of folks thought the Hoyas games were, if not boring, a little too dry. That may be shallow but that was simply hoe a bunch of flks felt. And it just wasn’t the offense, the defense was just as dull as the Hoyas sat back and kept teams at bay rather than press and play more aggressively. This feeling of dullness extended to high school players and AAU coaches which helps explain why III had some recruiting issues as time passed. Virginia suffers from these complaints even more but it had things going in its favor that III did not : a)sustained success in the regular season by winning or finishing near the top of the toughest conference (and avoiding, except for one notorious game, first round upsets in the tourney; b)a great on-campus arena to play its games; c)being in a conference that allowed you to play Duke and UNC at least once each season.
Lastly it is hard to promote your product without the help of the media. Big John had established such a tense relationship with the press that it started to portray the program negatively. But it kept covering the program so long as it was winning and highly relevant. The moment that was over it pretty much went away. III was more open to the press than his dad but the damage had been done. Locally the media started doing its numbers research and would justify it giving greater coverage to the VTech football program, let alone Maryland’s main programs, over the coverage for Georgetown
So what can Ewing do to help the situation? Understanding that winning basketball does not have to exclude excitement. To play a style that entices good players, a style that they can see themselves playing. To keep his NBA offense approach but adding on the type of aggressive defense that is just as fun to play and watch. Scheduling worthy opponents for the out of conference games, the type of teams that will put butts in seats. To be more engaged with the media and for his program to have a bigger footprint in social media. To bust his butt on the recruiting tail and have fallback options in case his first choices go elsewhere. To keep the integrity of the school in check by ensuring the players go to class and stay out of trouble and to show the door to players who disrupt, get into trouble and don’t follow the coaches’ instructions. To attain a few Big East titles, win games in the post season and go far in the tourney. That’s about it. And I think Ewing has done this or in the process of getting to the point to put himself in a position to do so. I feel optimistic.
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Post by professorhoya on Aug 19, 2019 5:13:20 GMT -5
So far as Memphis is concerned: 1-The city is the one part of Tennessee more basketball driven than football driven 2-the school itself is not too difficult to get into unlike Georgetown and therefore all sorts of people from diverse corers of the city and state attend the university, unlike Gtown, which means everyone has family, friends, neighbors who went to the school which creates this natural community for the schol and an affinity for its programs (again, unlike Georgetown). 3-Because its a big public school it produces far more potential fans through alums each yea compared to Georgetown, and those alum/fans become promoters of the school and its teams by spreading their passion of them to loved ones, co-workers, relatives, future spouses, future children, etc. 4-Far less things to do in Memphis compared to Washington, DC, far less things to keep you occupied, far less teams (professional and college) to follow. That means the Memphis Tigers basketball team has more of its city market gobbled up than Georgetown could ever possibly have for DC, even if the program had been as successful as Duke. When it comes to Villanova, well, it has gone to three Final Fours since the Hoyas last appearance in a Final Four in 2007. It has also won three national championships since Georgetown won its lone title in 1984. And since the formation of the New Big East it has won almost every single conference regular season title and tournament title. So there should be no surprise it has twice the following. Heck, at this rate it should have more. The problem with Georgetown is its connective tissue with the DC metropolitan area. As a school it is somewhat isolated because its resides in an area dominated by an elite upperclass who seem, even to this day with city-wide gentrification, removed from the rest of the city residents and definitely was clearly removed from the city back during the basketball team’s heyday in the 1980s, when much of the city of DC was in a terrible predicament. And the students who attended Georgetown have no natural bond with the DMV because the vast majority of them don’t have any roots with the city, the area. There may be more foreign students at Georgetown than there are those from the DC metropolitan area. This is in stark contrast to the University of Maryland who has a far, far larger percentage of students with DC area (and Baltimore) ties. As a result there is not the human infrastructure in place for the Georgetown basketball program to generate the type of expansive fanbase that you find for programs like Memphis. There are two private universities that have enjoyed the support of a huge fanbase over the course of decades: Notre Dame and Duke. Notre Dame though is a huge university, one that can match state schools in terms of size. Most of all for the longest time (maybe still to this day) they have benefited as being the unofficial school of Irish and to a lesser extent as the unofficial school of Catholics. This meant that people who didn’t even attend the school but fell under those two categories would develop some affinity for the school and its teams. This helped give Notre Dame a huge resource of fan support in the Northeast. Duke didn’t have such advantages and in fact resided in a state with two huge state universities who dominated the local support (UNC and NC State). It was a highly regarded academic school in an enviable conference that from time to time had some major success, particularly its basketball program. But then K came. And after awhile he grew an empire that has lasted for roughly four decades. Imagine if Georgetown had remained as relevant over 40 years as it had been in the mid-to late 80s. That’s pretty much what you have gotten with Duke under K. Because of this Duke became a true blueblood and a brand name. K became a brand name too. Georgetown had been a brand name once but think of it as like a Circuit City to Duke’s Amazon. Not an entirely accurate comparison because Amazon hasn’t been around as long, but the point is that everyone knows the Amazon brand and most even use Amazon services. Meanwhile they may have fond memories of that Circuit City place and think to themselves how its such a shame in regards to what happened to it. That’s Georgetown hoops in a nutshell. People who have been on the Earth long enough to recall the glory days of Georgetown basketball may every once awhile think “whatever happened to them?”. I recently visited a Memphis Tigers board and saw a brief conversation started by one fan who was shocked that Georgetown had a white player (Mac) in its lineup. Other fans had to explain who he was and gush over him. To this one guy. But I couldn’t help thinking about how Georgetown has been so far out of the consciousness of both casual fan and basketball enthusiasts, that people weren’t even aware that the internet sensation Mac McClung has been starting for the Hoyas for a year. Another point that needs to be addressed is that for a stretch of lets say 14 or so years (from the Ewing era to the short run of Iverson), Georgetown basketball had one major advantage in its backpocket: it was the unofficial team of African Americans. The style of play and the fact that its coach was this big, unapologetic black man who himself became a brand name, were the reasons why it drew such a large African American following. Oh, and the winning too. Thompson was the first black coach to win the NCAA title. Now a lot of this is before my time because I did not start following the team until I became a teen, right around the time Alonzo Mourning committed to the program. But I’ve have heard and read stuff about some Georgetown alum were uncomfortable with the idea of Georgetown being black America’s team. They were also weary of the issue that many African Americans and white Americans were under the impression that Georgetown was a predominantly black school because of the racial makeup of the coach and the players. This gave Georgetown cultural legitimacy in urban areas all across the USA, a huge fanbase of people who had no ties, in terms of both school and geography, with Georgetown University. And no better way for African Americans to display their Hoya love than to wear the colors, most specifically the Georgetown Starter jackets which unfortunately some kids were killed over and in the case of the “soldiers” who worked for drug kingpin Rayful Edmond were covered in when buried after meeting their demise. I read somewhere in the early 90s that Georgetown Hoyas clothing was the number one selling sports apparel in America. It had been like that for a time for stretch of years. This was without the benefit of being a large school or having a D1 football program. This was despite the fact that the team was hated largely by white America, or specifically white American sports fans. This is not to say that there weren’t black fans who hated the Hoyas. They were but they were mostly supporters of real rival teams like the Terrapins, Syracuse fans, St. John’s etc. But the true hatred came from white American sports fans , even white fans of teams that didn’t play Georgetown. I’m certain there were plenty of white people spread across America who did like Georgetown (like Rex Chapman), but it seemed as if the main white supporters of the team were white alum and white students of the school itself (although, yes, I know about white alum/students of Georgetown who did not support Thompson and his teams because of the lack of white players and because they didn’t think racially or academically, the players of his teams sufficiently represented the university). So this leads me to believe the apparel sales I had mentioned a bit earlier were mostly the result of African Americans buying the Georgetown gear. That type of advantage, being that beloved by a specific racial/ethnic demographic, is one that Georgetown no longer has. And its doubtful it can ever get that band back together again n matter how well Ewing does as coach (but maybe I’m wrong). Ironically while the Hoyas were beloved by African Americans, especially those living in DC, it was playing in arena located a distance away from Chocolate City. Granted the Capital Center was located in a predominantly black suburb, but Landover was a wasteland and highly inaccessible considering the lack of public transportation. Oh, and there was pretty much nothing out there other than the Capital Center. When the Hoyas moved to a new building in DC (the MCI Arena hence my screen name), it was moving its games into a city with changing demographics all the while dealing with the changing fortunes of its program. The program would start falling on hard times with occasional success thrown in here and there. Eventually Craig Esherick would be let go and John Thompson III would be brought in. And quickly III had some success. That success would eventually lead to better gate attendance. Sellouts were still rare but there were a few under III and a lot more games in which 80% plus capacity was achieved. Nothing to sneeze at. But a point that I and a few made way back then was that the key to filling out the arena more was by exciting people who had no ties to the university as well as exciting those who were not already diehard fans. It was possible in my estimation to bring back not just many of those black fans of the program but to reel in a new generation of black fans of the area. Most importantly I felt the bad blood between the program and white America had for the most part vanished and that while III’s teams still didn’t have a lot of white players, III and his players were not the in-your-face types who would turn off potential new white fans. And of course if III did well he could bring in folks from all races, not just black and white, into the fold. But to do this I thought III needed two important ingredients: sustained high levels of winning and an exciting product. The former didn’t occur. Even before the Hoyas started losing so badly during the regular season, they were doing something worse by losing to lower seeds in the first rounds of the NCAA tournament. In a time in which regular season college hoops don’t mean as much to sports fan and the tourney was all that mattered, getting upset time and time again hurt the brand. Period. However the style of play may have done the program in on all fronts. III early on kept insisting that the Princeton offense was just as well represented by the high octane offense of the Chris Webber Sacramento Kings as it was to the much slower offense of the program of the school it was named after. III hinted at going in the direction of the Kings, the reality was he had no true interest in that. It was clear by how the team played and practiced. III seemed to have such an aversion to doing anything quick on the court that a reporter one time infamously reported that the Hoyas were the one team of dozens he visited during pre-season practice in which they didn’t work on the fastbreak at all. At all. This topic has led to a lot of infighting on the boards, often leading to some folks cherry picking the handful of high profile games in which the Hoyas scored 75 or more points. I’m not trying to get into that debate again. What I will say though is that for those outside the Georgetown fandom and those outside of a few broadcasters who showered praise on the beauty of the Princeton offense, the majority of folks thought the Hoyas games were, if not boring, a little too dry. And it just wasn’t the offense, the defense was just as dull as the Hoyas sat back and kept teams at bay rather than press and play more aggressively. This feeling of dullness extended to high school players and AAU coaches which helps explain why III some recruiting issues. Virginia suffers from these complaints even more but it had things going in its favor that III did not : a)sustained success in the regular season by winning or finishing near the top of the toughest conference) and avoiding, except for one notorious game, first round upsets in the tourney; b)a great on-campus arena to play its games; c)being in a conference that allowed you to play Duke and UNC at least once each season. Lastly it is hard to promote your product without the help of the media. Big John had established such a tense relationship with the press that it started to portray the program negatively. But it kept covering the program so long as it was winning and highly relevant. The moment that was over it pretty much went away. III was more open to the press than his dad but the damage had been done. Locally the media started doing its numbers research and would justify it giving greater coverage to the VTech football program, let alone Maryland’s main programs, over the coverage for Georgetown So what can Ewing do to help the situation? Understanding that winning basketball does not have to exclude excitement. To play a style that entices good players, a style that they can see themselves playing. To keep his NBA offense approach but adding on the type of aggressive defense that is just as fun to play and watch. Scheduling worthy opponents for the out of conference games, the type of teams that will put butts in seats. To be more engaged with the media and for his program to have a bigger footprint in social media. To bust his butt on the recruiting tail and have fallback options in case his first choices go elsewhere. To keep the integrity of the school in check by ensuring the players go to class and stay out of trouble and to show the door to players who disrupt, get into trouble and don’t follow the coaches’ instructions. To attain a few Big East titles, win games in the post season and go far in the tourney. That’s about it. And I think Ewing has done this or in the process of getting to the point to put himself in a position to do so. I feel optimistic. Great post. He who must not be named and his minions are trying to rewrite history by somehow blaming the Thompson's/Ewing and Georgetown for letting the national brand slip away because they want the money to be pumped into football. But as you say in college basketball things have changed. What made Georgetown's brand was having the first black NCAA title winning coach, an all black starting five (in an era when that was pretty rare in college basketball) and a predominantly black team, and a coach who was vocal in pointing out social injustice and doing something about it. That's what made the brand national. Of the blue bloods of that era: People forget that at the time Duke was considered a white team like the 80s celtics. Kentucky was a white/light skinned school/team with guys like Chapman, Padgett, Travis Ford. Kansas was a white/farmer kid school with guys like LaFrentz, Osertag, Heinrich, Nick Collison. Of the blue bloods, UNC was the blue blood that was recruiting African Americans. But now Duke's teams are predominantly black. As are Kentucky's teams. And Kansas changed when Bill Self took over and started recruiting nationally instead of midwest regionally. So not only is Georgetown fighting for the same recruits against Blue Blood schools with massive resources, alumni bases and history but what made Georgetown unique isn't unique anymore because of progress in the college game. There still is a big problem with college head coaching but that's been quietly swept under the rug so high level recruits for the most part don't factor that in in making decisions. “I was a kid in the ’80s,” VCU coach Shaka Smart told Yahoo! Sports last year, “but I remember the notion that if you were a high-level player from a family that really valued a Black identity, going to play for John Thompson was the thing to do.” atlantablackstar.com/2015/03/30/lack-black-college-basketball-coaches-troubling-trend-not-looking-changing-soon/The other factors are that after the success of David Stern/Magic & Bird/Jordan the NBA game has exploded in popularity and $$$. And the amount of money involved in recruiting in college basketball has exploded as well and that has become the overriding factor over over anything else to a much greater degree than it was in the 80s/90s. The one and done and the fact that very few elite players stay 4 years also hurts since no longer is the parent as concerned about who is looking after their son if it's only 1 year compared to 4.
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calhoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,352
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Post by calhoya on Aug 19, 2019 7:46:21 GMT -5
Nice job MCI. I would add one personal story. My father, a black man (no one in his generation is "African American") in his early 80's, became a fan of the Hoyas because of John Thompson. He and his brothers had no connection to Georgetown other than the coach and really preferred rooting for the New York Giants football team over basketball. His loyalty was to the man not the program. When Thompson left, he lost a lot of interest in the program. He watched on and off during the JT III years and really did not start getting interested again until Ewing came. It's his grandsons interest in Hoya basketball that has brought his attention back to the program. I cannot imagine that his story is that unique and there have to be many fans who supported the program in the 1980's because of the coach and not necessarily out of any love for the school.
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LCPolo18
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,406
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Post by LCPolo18 on Aug 19, 2019 15:09:29 GMT -5
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EtomicB
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by EtomicB on Aug 19, 2019 15:49:25 GMT -5
The program has definitely taken a step in the right direction by opening up a lot more this off-season... In my view, it's putting a much-needed facelift on the program...
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hoya73
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,222
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Post by hoya73 on Aug 19, 2019 17:21:54 GMT -5
As a lower bowl season ticket sharer, I think we're underestimating the continued fan support of African-American families first attracted during the era of Thompson, Jr, but who stayed on through the Esherick, JT III years and now are delighted with Ewing. I've seen the same families in the 2-3 sections close to where I sit more consistently than I see older alums like myself.
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,379
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Post by drquigley on Aug 19, 2019 21:05:11 GMT -5
So far as Memphis is concerned: 1-The city is the one part of Tennessee more basketball-driven than football-driven 2-the school itself is not too difficult to get into unlike Georgetown and therefore all sorts of people from diverse corners of the city and state attend the university, unlike Gtown, which means everyone has family, friends, neighbors who went to the school which creates this natural community for the school and an affinity for its programs (again, unlike Georgetown). 3-Because its a big public school it produces far more potential fans through alums each year compared to Georgetown, and those alum/fans become promoters of the school and its teams by spreading their passion of them to loved ones, co-workers, relatives, future spouses, future children, etc. 4-Far less things to do in Memphis compared to Washington, DC, far less things to keep you occupied, far less teams (professional and college) to follow. That means the Memphis Tigers basketball team has more of its city market gobbled up than Georgetown could ever possibly have for DC, even if the program had been as successful as Duke. When it comes to Villanova, well, it has gone to three Final Fours since the Hoyas last appearance in a Final Four in 2007. It has also won three national championships since Georgetown won its lone title in 1984. And since the formation of the New Big East it has won almost every single conference regular season title and tournament title. So there should be no surprise it has twice the following. Heck, at this rate it should have more. The problem with Georgetown is its connective tissue with the DC metropolitan area. As a school it is somewhat isolated because its resides in an area dominated by an elite upper class who seem, even to this day with city-wide gentrification, removed from the rest of the city residents and definitely was clearly removed from the city back during the basketball team’s heyday in the 1980s, when much of the city of DC was in a terrible predicament. And the students who attended Georgetown have no natural bond with the DMV because the vast majority of them don’t have any roots with the city, the area. There may be more foreign students at Georgetown than there are those from the DC metropolitan area. This is in stark contrast to the University of Maryland who has a far, far larger percentage of students with DC area (and Baltimore) ties. As a result there is not the human infrastructure in place for the Georgetown basketball program to generate the type of expansive fanbase that you find for programs like Memphis. There are two private universities that have escaped scenarios like these and enjoyed the support of a huge fanbase over the course of decades: Notre Dame and Duke. Notre Dame though is a huge university, one that can match state schools in terms of size. Most of all for the longest time (maybe still to this day) they have benefited as being the unofficial school of Irish Americans and to a lesser extent as the unofficial school of Catholics. This meant that people who didn’t even attend the school but fell under those two categories would develop some affinity for the school and its teams. This helped give Notre Dame a huge resource of fan support in the Northeast. Duke didn’t have such advantages and in fact resided in a state with two huge state universities who dominated the local support (UNC and NC State). It was a highly regarded academic school in an enviable conference that from time to time had some major success, particularly its basketball program. But then K came. And after awhile he grew an empire that has lasted for roughly four decades. Imagine if Georgetown had remained as relevant over 40 years as it had been in the mid-to late 80s. That’s pretty much what you have gotten with Duke under K. Because of this Duke became a true blueblood and a brand name. K became a brand name too. Georgetown had been a brand name once but think of it as like a Circuit City to Duke’s Amazon. Not an entirely accurate comparison because Amazon hasn’t been around as long, but the point is that everyone knows the Amazon brand and most even use Amazon services. Meanwhile they may have fond memories of that Circuit City place and think to themselves how its such a shame what happened to it. That’s Georgetown hoops in a nutshell. People who have been on the Earth long enough to recall the glory days of Georgetown basketball may every once awhile think “whatever happened to them?”. I recently visited a Memphis Tigers board and saw a brief conversation started by one fan who was shocked that Georgetown had a white player (Mac) in its lineup. Other fans had to explain who he was and gush over him. But I couldn’t help thinking about how Georgetown has been so far out of the consciousness of both casual fan and basketball enthusiasts, that people weren’t even aware that the internet sensation Mac McClung has been starting for the Hoyas for a year. Another point that needs to be addressed is that for a stretch of let's say 14 or so years (from the Ewing era to the short run of Iverson), Georgetown basketball had one major advantage in its backpocket: it was the unofficial team of African Americans. The style of play and the fact that its coach was this big, unapologetic black man who himself became a brand name, were the reasons why it drew such a large African American following. Oh, and the winning too. Thompson was the first black coach to win the NCAA title. Now a lot of this is before my time because I did not start following the team until I became a teen, right around the time Alonzo Mourning committed to the program. But I’ve have heard and read stuff about some Georgetown alum were uncomfortable with the idea of Georgetown being black America’s team. They were also weary of the issue that many African Americans and white Americans were under the impression that Georgetown was a predominantly black school because of the racial makeup of the coach and the players. This gave Georgetown cultural legitimacy in urban areas all across the USA, a huge fanbase of people who had no ties, in terms of both school and geography, with Georgetown University. And no better way for African Americans to display their Hoya love than to wear the colors, most specifically the Georgetown Starter jackets which unfortunately some kids were killed over and in the case of the “soldiers” who worked for drug kingpin Rayful Edmond were covered in when buried after meeting their demise. I read somewhere in the early 90s that Georgetown Hoyas clothing was the number one selling sports apparel in America. It had been like that for a time for stretch of years. This was without the benefit of being a large school or having a D1 football program. This was despite the fact that the team was hated largely by white America, or specifically white American sports fans. This is not to say that there weren’t black fans who hated the Hoyas. They were but they were mostly supporters of real rival teams like the Terrapins, Syracuse fans, St. John’s etc. But the true hatred came from white American sports fans , even white fans of teams that didn’t play Georgetown. I’m certain there were plenty of white people spread across America who did like Georgetown (like Rex Chapman), but it seemed as if the main white supporters of the team were white alum and white students of the school itself (although, yes, I know about white alum/students of Georgetown who did not support Thompson and his teams because of the lack of white players and because they didn’t think racially or academically, the players of his teams sufficiently represented the university). So this leads me to believe the apparel sales I had mentioned were the result of African Americans buying the Georgetown gear. That type of advantage, being that beloved by a specific racial/ethnic demographic, is one that Georgetown no longer has. And its doubtful it can ever happen again no matter how well Ewing does as coach (but maybe I’m wrong). Ironically while the Hoyas were beloved by African Americans, especially those living in DC, it was playing in arena located a distance away from Chocolate City. Granted the Capital Center was resided in a predominantly black suburb, but Landover was a wasteland and highly inaccessible considering the lack of public transportation. Plus there was pretty much nothing out there other than the Capital Center. When the Hoyas moved to a new building in DC (the MCI Arena hence my screen name), it was moving its games into a city with changing demographics all the while dealing with the changing fortunes of its program. The program would start falling on hard times with occasional success thrown in here and there. And it was doing so in time in which all the local oxygen for college hoops was being spent on Gary Williams' Maryland Terrapin basketball program. Eventually Craig Esherick would be let go and John Thompson III would be brought in. And quickly III had some success. That success would eventually lead to better gate attendance. Sellouts were still rare but there were a few under III and a lot more games in which 80% plus capacity was achieved. Nothing to sneeze at. But a point that I and a few made way back then was that the key to filling out the arena more was by exciting people who had no ties to the university as well as exciting those who were not already diehard fans. In other words the fanbase needed to be expanded again because there weren't enough Georgetown alums to get the new venue rocking every game. It was possible in my estimation to bring back not just many of those black fans of the program but to reel in a new generation of black fans of the area. Most importantly I felt the bad blood between the program and white America had for the most part vanished and that while III’s teams still didn’t have a lot of white players, III and his players were not the in-your-face types who would turn off potential new white fans. And of course if III did well he could bring in folks from all races, not just black and white, into the fold. But to do this I thought III needed two important ingredients: sustained high levels of winning and an exciting product. The former didn’t occur. Even before the Hoyas started losing so badly during the regular season, they were doing something worse by losing to lower seeds in the first rounds of the NCAA tournament. In a time in which regular season college hoops don’t mean as much to sports fan and the tourney was all that mattered, getting upset time and time again hurt the brand. Period. However the style of play may have done the program in on all fronts. III early on kept insisting that the Princeton offense was just as well represented by the high octane offense of the Chris Webber Sacramento Kings as it was to the much slower offense of the program of the school it was named after. III hinted at going in the direction of the Kings, the reality was he had no true interest in that. It was clear by how the team played and practiced. III seemed to have such an aversion to doing anything quick on the court that a reporter one time infamously reported that the Hoyas were the one team of dozens he visited during pre-season practice in which they didn’t work on the fastbreak at all. At all. This topic has led to a lot of infighting on the boards, often leading to some folks cherry picking the handful of high profile games in which the Hoyas scored 75 or more points. I’m not trying to get into that debate again. What I will say though is that for those outside the Georgetown fandom and those outside of a few broadcasters who showered praise on the beauty of the Princeton offense, the majority of folks thought the Hoyas games were, if not boring, a little too dry. That may be shallow but that was simply hoe a bunch of flks felt. And it just wasn’t the offense, the defense was just as dull as the Hoyas sat back and kept teams at bay rather than press and play more aggressively. This feeling of dullness extended to high school players and AAU coaches which helps explain why III had some recruiting issues as time passed. Virginia suffers from these complaints even more but it had things going in its favor that III did not : a)sustained success in the regular season by winning or finishing near the top of the toughest conference (and avoiding, except for one notorious game, first round upsets in the tourney; b)a great on-campus arena to play its games; c)being in a conference that allowed you to play Duke and UNC at least once each season. Lastly it is hard to promote your product without the help of the media. Big John had established such a tense relationship with the press that it started to portray the program negatively. But it kept covering the program so long as it was winning and highly relevant. The moment that was over it pretty much went away. III was more open to the press than his dad but the damage had been done. Locally the media started doing its numbers research and would justify it giving greater coverage to the VTech football program, let alone Maryland’s main programs, over the coverage for Georgetown So what can Ewing do to help the situation? Understanding that winning basketball does not have to exclude excitement. To play a style that entices good players, a style that they can see themselves playing. To keep his NBA offense approach but adding on the type of aggressive defense that is just as fun to play and watch. Scheduling worthy opponents for the out of conference games, the type of teams that will put butts in seats. To be more engaged with the media and for his program to have a bigger footprint in social media. To bust his butt on the recruiting tail and have fallback options in case his first choices go elsewhere. To keep the integrity of the school in check by ensuring the players go to class and stay out of trouble and to show the door to players who disrupt, get into trouble and don’t follow the coaches’ instructions. To attain a few Big East titles, win games in the post season and go far in the tourney. That’s about it. And I think Ewing has done this or in the process of getting to the point to put himself in a position to do so. I feel optimistic. Great post. Race is the huge elephant in any room when you tslk about Hoya basketball. Any other geezers remember the Hoya-Syracuse game back in 1966 or 1967? Local boy Dave Bing (Spingarn HS) made his return to DC and McDonough was full of BLACK PEOPLE! We GU students had never seen anything like it. But I'm sure GU administrators had that game in mind when they went after a local hero like John Thompson to coach the team. Fans forget that even before Ewing JT II was building a pretty good team and program. Where we go from here I can't say but there is no doubt in my mind, after seeing what Ewing has accomplished in 2 years, that he is the right man to restore at least some of the glory of the JT II era.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Aug 19, 2019 21:16:19 GMT -5
Just want to say that I am ecstatic that our boys had a great time in my hometown, the Bahamas, the most beautiful little country in the world!
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mapei
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,088
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Post by mapei on Aug 19, 2019 21:53:23 GMT -5
MCI, wow. That may be the best post I’ve ever read on this board.
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MCIGuy
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Anyone here? What am I supposed to update?
Posts: 9,426
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Post by MCIGuy on Aug 20, 2019 5:54:27 GMT -5
MCI, wow. That may be the best post I’ve ever read on this board. Not so sure about that but thanks, mapei.
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hoyazeke
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,816
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Post by hoyazeke on Aug 20, 2019 9:11:14 GMT -5
MCI....great post...Calhoya, your story is almost identical to mine. My pops(74) made me a GTOWN fan in the early 80s. I lived in Tidewater for the majority of my life(NOVA now) so I got to see GTOWN every week during bball season growing up....😁
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