Now onto the season

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

Great couple of weeks! To focus in on this years squad, I want to get some thoughts on what everyone predicts.

We have heard that shooting is a question mark in prior threads. 1) Let's talk about the dark horse players who you think will shine this season for the hoyas?
2) Let's discuss w's & l's predictions?
3) Let's talk about attendance estimates?
4) Let's talk about the dance?

I've got Crawford as my dark horse primarily because I want to see him do well. There are going to be a lot of wide open spot up threes available and all anyone needs to do is knock those down. I am predicting 24-5 with only one loss in the pre-big east season. 12-4 in conference and a two seed in the BE tourney.

I think attendance will be improved significantly (easy prediction) with about 2k more per game. The pre-big east will weigh those numbers down some since Oregon is the only big conference opponent. The environment is going to be much better as we build off of the later half of last season.

I am guessing we get a #2 seed in the dance and we are national champs at the end of the year beating Florida by 2, BAM!!!

[casualhoya]

easy there, columbiaheights.

i'll be cautiously optimistic and agree with all of the above...but think we'll only beat florida by 1.

go hoyas!

casually.

[aggypryd]

We'll struggle with our outside shooting...it'll cost us some very winnable games.

Sweet 16 appearance...lose to Carolina by 8...

[Deleted]

HI!!

I don't believe that 3 point shooting is going to be as much of a problem as you do.

First, Florida has only one real 3 point shooter (Humphries) and they did OK.

Second-having followed JTIII in the years at Princeton, I noticed that 2 or 3 players always improved dramatically over the summer. I will predict that we will see a couple of big surprises this year. The only question is, who will it be? My guess is that JT3 told his players to shoot threes until their arms fell off during the summer. I don't remember Ashanti being much of threat as a 3 point shooter until his senior year.

I also predict that this year Roy will start shooting from the high post.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

No OOC losses, 3 in confrence losses, a Big East Tournamnet Title, and The first of our 3 consecutive National Titles. We then lose in the finals the next year, but then win the one after that. After that i'm not sure.

[doublehoya]

I think your attendance estimates are low -- I think we are in for a real shock attendance wise. Not only have they sold TONS of season tickets, student tickets, and YA tickets, but the DC buzz is back, and it is here to stay.

All these local recruits are going to do wonders for our local non-alum sales. We are going to be DC's team once again. I think the AD should (and prob. will) invest in a serious ad campaign to get the casual fans in the door and hooked on Georgetown Basketball.

I think we are going to see HUGE walk up and single game sales this year. We may have to wait for the BE season to start to really see this, but there is no question that G'town is providing the premier NCAA basketball experience in the DC area this season (and for many seasons to come!) I can't wait for Nov. 11th to come!

[aggypryd]

hoyasincebirth said:

No OOC losses, 3 in confrence losses, a Big East Tournamnet Title, and The first of our 3 consecutive National Titles. We then lose in the finals the next year, but then win the one after that. After that i'm not sure.

Mustard Seed Faith...

[SoCal Hoya85]

mivcevich said:

Great couple of weeks! To focus in on this years squad, I want to get some thoughts on what everyone predicts.

We have heard that shooting is a question mark in prior threads. 1) Let's talk about the dark horse players who you think will shine this season for the hoyas?
2) Let's discuss w's & l's predictions?
3) Let's talk about attendance estimates?
4) Let's talk about the dance?

I've got Crawford as my dark horse primarily because I want to see him do well. There are going to be a lot of wide open spot up threes available and all anyone needs to do is knock those down. I am predicting 24-5 with only one loss in the pre-big east season. 12-4 in conference and a two seed in the BE tourney.

I think attendance will be improved significantly (easy prediction) with about 2k more per game. The pre-big east will weigh those numbers down some since Oregon is the only big conference opponent. The environment is going to be much better as we build off of the later half of last season.

I am guessing we get a #2 seed in the dance and we are national champs at the end of the year beating Florida by 2, BAM!!!

I don't know if you can call Crawford a dark horse anymore based on III's quotes and the fact he is team captain. In my opinion the dark horse will either be Rivers or Spann.

Rivers played a similar offense in high school and it has been discussed how the backcourt is our weakest area right now. Tyler and especially Jon have been known to get into foul trouble when facing quicker guards so I think Rivers will get more burn than many people are currently projecting. I think he will be good protecting the ball so the X factor is his jump shot.

As for Spann I've only seen a very limited amount of his game, however I have always been a fan since from what I have seen he has a consistent J from mid range. Depending on how ready the freshmen are (Summers and Macklin) I can see Spann getting some AKD minutes and perhaps expanding on it.

For my prediction on the season, I think we will beat every team we face by at least 20 points.

[SFHoya99]

I think Crawford qualifies as a darkhorse. His team captaincy would have come regardless of playing time -- the guy is a leader.

As for III's comments that he should have gotten more playing time, reality is that there are two guards who DID get more playing time last year and they are still on the roster.

I'm rooting for Tyler as well, at least to get minutes. But he's certainly not the favorite to start (Jessie is) and I find it hard that a comment by III at an awards banquet has moved him ahead of Marc.

On Tyler, I actually think his set shot has always been pretty good -- well, probably better than Jessie's and about equal with Marc. (I've never seen any of those guys take a jumper off the dribble).

What was holding him back, a bit, I think, was the ballhandling. III seems to prefer to have at least two PG quality handlers on the floor - and we had Cook, Wallace, Sapp and DJ (somewhat). Two of those guys were always on the floor. I'm willing to be we didn't play one meaningful minute without two of those four out there and almost always with two of the first three once Sapp was accustomed to college play.

If Tyler has improved his handles, I think he has a much better shot at starting at the two, especially since our small forward is guaranteed to be less experienced than DJ or Brandon, and very possibly less skilled.

[CO_Hoya]

sfhoya99 said:

I think Crawford qualifies as a darkhorse. His team captaincy would have come regardless of playing time -- the guy is a leader.

As for III's comments that he should have gotten more playing time, reality is that there are two guards who DID get more playing time last year and they are still on the roster.

I'm rooting for Tyler as well, at least to get minutes. But he's certainly not the favorite to start (Jessie is) and I find it hard that a comment by III at an awards banquet has moved him ahead of Marc.

On Tyler, I actually think his set shot has always been pretty good -- well, probably better than Jessie's and about equal with Marc. (I've never seen any of those guys take a jumper off the dribble).

I dunno about Marc. Listening to JTIII's comments on his Dad's radio show last week, it sounds like Marc is a bit behind some of the other players in picking up the offense (I may be reading too much into this), and, coupled with the comments about TC the last few months, I'd expect Marc to be behind Crawford in the rotation.


To me, the interesting questions will be:

1. Does the rotation increase much beyond 6-7 regulars? As the talent level increases the next few years, it will be interesting to see how JTIII's usage patterns change.

2. Echoing Jerry, will Roy / Jeff become more aggressive outside shooters? Opponents will likely play zone almost exclusively, and someone will have to make the elbow jumper (as Bowman and Owens did in the 1st half against Cuse in the BE tourney).

3. How long will PE Jr be able to hold off Summers from the starting line-up? I think Patrick's defense will be much better to start, but he'll need to demonstrate an outside shot.

4. How will the fans react to the first bad loss? The bandwagon is a bit crowded these days, but we're gonna have a S. Florida-type game in the OOC (at Vanderbilt? at Michigan?). Moaning about the offense ("Too deliberate; you need to increase the number of possessions against inferior talent"), the shooting ("Can anyone besides JWall make a 3?"), the guards ("Play defense!"), and/or Jeff/Roy are all predictable.


This should be fun!

[HoyaFanNY]

i honestly thought we relied too much on the 3 at times last year, so maybe we'll look for better looks from 2 more often than just shooting the first open 3. as far as the breakout player, i think it is egerson. i realize the minutes are limited up front with roy, jeff, PE, dejuan & vernon but i'm hoping he might get some time at both the 2 & 3 spots. unlike the last few years our depth is a major asset this season.

[williambraskyiii]

geezus johnny...SFHoya, you have 5000 posts. you should *probably* consider offing yourself.

sfhoya99 said:

I think Crawford qualifies as a darkhorse. His team captaincy would have come regardless of playing time -- the guy is a leader.

As for III's comments that he should have gotten more playing time, reality is that there are two guards who DID get more playing time last year and they are still on the roster.

I'm rooting for Tyler as well, at least to get minutes. But he's certainly not the favorite to start (Jessie is) and I find it hard that a comment by III at an awards banquet has moved him ahead of Marc.

On Tyler, I actually think his set shot has always been pretty good -- well, probably better than Jessie's and about equal with Marc. (I've never seen any of those guys take a jumper off the dribble).

What was holding him back, a bit, I think, was the ballhandling. III seems to prefer to have at least two PG quality handlers on the floor - and we had Cook, Wallace, Sapp and DJ (somewhat). Two of those guys were always on the floor. I'm willing to be we didn't play one meaningful minute without two of those four out there and almost always with two of the first three once Sapp was accustomed to college play.

If Tyler has improved his handles, I think he has a much better shot at starting at the two, especially since our small forward is guaranteed to be less experienced than DJ or Brandon, and very possibly less skilled.

[FrostbackHoya]

How do we lose this year?

I bet somebody lights it up from three early, we stay in our deliberate offense and we never quite catch up.

So, amongst your choices, I go with blaming the offense.

I CANNOT believe that we lose b/c the guards jack up too many threes and miss them. If we have a hi/lo post combo that is top 3 in the country, and we lose b/c we don't give them the ball, JTIII will throttle JW. The end of Hoya game this year might be hack-a-shaq(roy) boredom, but I don't think it'll be jacking threes.

[SFHoya99]

4. How will the fans react to the first bad loss? The bandwagon is a bit crowded these days, but we're gonna have a S. Florida-type game in the OOC (at Vanderbilt? at Michigan?). Moaning about the offense ("Too deliberate; you need to increase the number of possessions against inferior talent"), the shooting ("Can anyone besides JWall make a 3?"), the guards ("Play defense!"), and/or Jeff/Roy are all predictable.

All true.

[SFHoya99]

williambraskyiii said:

geezus johnny...SFHoya, you have 5000 posts. you should *probably* consider offing yourself.

And I suppose you actually work at work all day?

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

I agree with most but on the attendance tip, Hartford, JMU, Towson, Navy are all going to be low attendance games even though three of those could be considered local. I don't see many students or alumni from the opposing schools coming to those games and if they come in at 9K, that lowers the overall despite the big east games. Good thing WSSU is at McD. I wish ODU was at MCI (always will be MCI to me, sorry).

[SoCal Hoya85]

sfhoya99 said:

I think Crawford qualifies as a darkhorse. His team captaincy would have come regardless of playing time -- the guy is a leader.

As for III's comments that he should have gotten more playing time, reality is that there are two guards who DID get more playing time last year and they are still on the roster.

I'm rooting for Tyler as well, at least to get minutes. But he's certainly not the favorite to start (Jessie is) and I find it hard that a comment by III at an awards banquet has moved him ahead of Marc.

On Tyler, I actually think his set shot has always been pretty good -- well, probably better than Jessie's and about equal with Marc. (I've never seen any of those guys take a jumper off the dribble).

What was holding him back, a bit, I think, was the ballhandling. III seems to prefer to have at least two PG quality handlers on the floor - and we had Cook, Wallace, Sapp and DJ (somewhat). Two of those guys were always on the floor. I'm willing to be we didn't play one meaningful minute without two of those four out there and almost always with two of the first three once Sapp was accustomed to college play.

If Tyler has improved his handles, I think he has a much better shot at starting at the two, especially since our small forward is guaranteed to be less experienced than DJ or Brandon, and very possibly less skilled.

I guess we have a different opinion of "dark horse." If Tyler Crawford qualifies I would think he would be a consensus dark horse pick, which kinda goes against the definition (a usually little known contender that makes an unexpectedly good showing). If we are all expecting him to put up bigger numbers is it that much of a surprise?

Also I am going by more than III's comments at the banquet. He has mentioned it in multiple interviews as well as in his address to students this past week or so. Either way I think we can agree he has worked really hard and has been great for this team.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

Just wanted to bring this one out. Some calls were made for shocking early season attendance. Last night was round 6000 and some were saying they thought those games would come in around 10 to 11,000. Early season losses are a bitch! As far as all the other speculation, it seems to be too early to tell.

[Eurostar]

my dark horse award for the first month goes to rivers. summers has contributed more but we expected that... i thought rivers would be stuck on the bench this year (and especially next year for that matter). he got an opportunity with crawford going down, and he has definitely made the most of it. hopefully he will be able to suit up for Oral Roberts this weekend.

despite all the pre-season speculation about the rotation, things have gone down basically how i expected. the big 3 will play 30+ minutes, sapp will play 25-30, and we will only go 7-8 deep in close games. though i thought ewing would be one of those 7-8. going forward i see crawford taking some of egerson's minutes. they are both hustle guys who understand the offense and how to finish, but crawford adds the ability to shoot the 3 where marc doesnt. ill maintain that we have missed crawfords intensity and 3pt shot during the last 7 games more than people are admitting.

[Dhall]

I was happy to see Tyler last night, but the kid is 3-12 on three-pointers for the year and 11-42 for his career. I don't mind him taking one or two a game, but we're much better off with DaJuan or Jeff increasing their three-point attempts. Not only have they shown a better percentage, but taking (and hopefully making) those shots helps keep their defenders (who are likely forwards)honest because each of them can put the ball on the floor and take it to the hoop. Tyler hasn't shown that he can or will do that. Now if Tyler starts to hit some more threes slowly over time, fine. Until then, I'd rather have DaJuan or Jeff or Jon or Jessie taking/missing them!