JT III

[btb (Account Inactive)]

Thank you Georgetown University for the memories, I was just to see my Hoyas play. There's so much going on in the world today. Dear Lord, I'm so glad you keep these young men under your wing through the travels and triumphs of their dreams. Please continue to keep them under your wings and guide them to success in whatever it may be. Teach us to be more patient and to understand what this is all about. It's not about us, it's about the Hoyas! Thank you seniors!

glidehoyas.blogspot.com/2011/03/hoyas-dream-season-ends-in-tough-second.html

[wrestlemania]

Mar 19, 2011 14:36:12 GMT -5 skyhoya said:

SD, one trick pony, time for the administration to talk to the Thompsons about stepping it up to play i n the BE

You are assuming that JT II takes orders from the university about the program, and that GU would prioritize having a top shelf basketball team once the Thompsons are gone. There's no evidence that either is true.

[prhoya]

We need some clarification with our overall record under JT2. According to this, we lost in the 2nd round of the NCAA in 1975, 1976 and 1979, but there isn't a reference to the first round:
espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/6088

According to hoyasaxa.com, it's 1st round exits in 1975 and 1976, and 2nd round exit in 1979, but again no reference to the 1st round game:
www.hoyabasketball.com/records/bb-1970.htm

If we go by ESPN's numbers and compare 27 years of Hoya basketball under JT2 and 20 NCAA appearances, we had only two 1st round exits. On the other hand, JT3 has had 2 first-round exits in five appearances since 2004.

Make what you will of this stat, but defensive minded teams get through the first round of the NCAAs. Soul-searching for JT3... It's as simple as "Dad, what do we need to do to improve our defense?" Whether is recruiting, new defensive strategy, etc..., do it.

[jackdog74]

JTIII should absolutely, positively stay. We just lost a game in the NCAA tournament to a team from an underrated confernce with a stable of Division I players. This is not 2004. We did not just lose a road game to 8 guys at MSG by 6-8 points when only a few were on scholarship. I'm as disappointed/angry/confused/disenchanted/enraged as everyone else. But let's let III work it out. The points regarding NC State and Seton Hall are dead on accurate.

[cosmopolitanhoya]

i am not on bandwagon that states to fire jt3. but like every1 says he needs to change. and since we dont have any alternatives nor is jt3 goin anywhere anyway even if the whole school wants him gone, we can only hope right?

last year after ohio loss, we all said he will change things up with lubick and moses. everyone was like "we need those bruisers. greg is not aggressive enough blah blabh blah" and what was the result? everyone here cryin out lubick not being quick and moses gettin 5 -7 min the whole season combined?

and u reali think adams / hopkins /trawick / whittenton can be better than freshmen lubick / moses / markel / bowen?

again, its not reali the talent. comin outta high school, all these cats had WAY more talents than wallace/green/hibbert. talent is there. thats why we were so ecstastic when we got free/wright/greg, cuz if we achieved ff4 with 3-4 star players, we can def. go win that champsionship with 5 star players. turns out thats not the case... those of u who question free/wright in their college career, u guys are being ridiculous. only guards that were more talented than those 2 were rose/mayo/gordon. not even nolan smith were better than those 2 and coach jt3 failed to develop em.

like every1 says, i will repeat this too. jt3 needs some serious soul searchin this offseason. he needs to play those kids who deserve playin time and bench those every game starter if they struggle. next year recruitin class willl NOT save the day, shown by lubick/moses/starks.

coach can save the day, and its all u to jt3

[DFW HOYA]

Mar 19, 2011 15:57:10 GMT -5 prhoya said:

We need some clarification with our overall record under JT2. According to this, we lost in the 2nd round of the NCAA in 1975, 1976 and 1979, but there isn't a reference to the first round:
espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/6088

According to hoyasaxa.com, it's 1st round exits in 1975 and 1976, and 2nd round exit in 1979, but again no reference to the 1st round game:
www.hoyabasketball.com/records/bb-1970.htm

First round exits below since 1972. The 1979 NCAA had a play-in, so like 2011 Georgetown's first game was in the "second" round.

1975 NCAA, refs stole lost to Central Michigan
1976 NCAA, lost to Arizona
1977 NIT, lost at Virginia Tech
1979 NCAA (3 seed, lost to Rutgers)
1981 NCAA (7 seed, lost to James Madison)
1997 NCAA (7 seed, lost to UNC-Charlotte)
1999 NIT, lost at Princeton
2009 NIT, lost at Baylor
2010 NCAA (3 seed, lost to Ohio)
2011 NCAA (6 seed, lost to VCU)

So, yes, Georgetown had five early outs over seven years from 1975 through 1981. It got better, though.

[cosmopolitanhoya]

Thank you Austin/Chris/Julian and also Ryan. I really liked these guys and they brought great talents, something that was absent since AI.

Coach JT3 owes a serious apology to these guys for not really leadin them to what he promised to them. I still remember Chris' commitment to hoyas speech "we have a chance to win national championship in sophomore year and i am excited to in the program that is climibin back."

every player wants to go to winning program, especially if you are MCDAA caliber players. jt3 failed hard developin em. he also owes apology to greg for bringin him away from duke and not winnin a single game (not solely his fault, yes, but major responsibility) with him while duke won it all last yaer (and they may repeat with kyrie back! XD)

[HometownHoya]

Our defense was horrible OOC, excellent mid-BE, and average to bad at the end of the season. Obviously the change from horrible to excellent was from a refocusing on D but I'm not sure how we ended going back to bad. Honestly, I think it was just our players getting tired: JV has his asthema, NL hit the FR wall, AF's ankle+diabetes, CW's injury, JC? This season is over though and we need to figure out what we did during our winning streak. For next year, we need to have a focus on D and staying in front of your man! I know that was the mantra for the mid season resurge but where was it in the VCU game? Switching on the nearest SNIFF of a pick then not switching back. Have some balls!! We saw it from Chris late in the game but before you switch, FIGHT THROUGH THE PICK! FIGHT TO STAY WITH YOUR MAN. Since we apparently need a basketball IQ for our O, why not apply it to D as well. You can tell when the pick is being set if the player will be able to fight through. What happened to hedge and recover? Our bigmen don't have the speed to recover? Great, lets put them on the PG... Another thing we need to do is never play straight up zone again...it allows our players to fall asleep and just coast along. We need our players using their brains on both ends of the floor, zone D allows them to shut off on D. I would love to see us return to the match-up zone from JTIII's earlier seasons. Honestly, I believe the match-up zone is the best D in college basketball, giving you the best principles from both man and zone. Keeps the defensive intensity and the responsibility of our players on their man but also helps to generally clog up the mid-range/paint. Make teams beat us in the way we have been winning recently. I can take a loss to a team that gets hot (which was how it looked early in the VCU game) but when your players just completely their pants (like what happened in the VCU game) it is unacceptable. What happened to the idea that if we were down that we would just lock down on D and run our sets. I understand that we want to get away from just running our sets because sometimes it isn't enough for our comeback but you can't even start a comeback if you don't play D!!!

If we were to just change one thing on offense it would be this: turnovers. Smart basketball requires players to take care of the ball. How many points of turnovers did VCU have yesterday? Another important facet of our O that we have been missing is controlled intensity. Meaning that every pass needs to be sharp and crisp, all cuts need to be at 110% and need to be quick and sharp. If we run our offense sluggishly, our passes will be picked off, our shots won't be open, and passing lanes won't be there. Other then these two important aspects, every offseason JTIII needs to start at square one with his offense and emphasis different aspects depending on his personnel. He does do this to an extent, as we've seen in becoming a jump shooting team, but we need to do it deeper. I feel like coming into this season, the question was: What do we do without Greg? When it should have been: How can we get our role player big men involved enough to make it easier for our stars to get their shots off? Now since we were looking at the first question, we realized we needed to run the offense and get all of our players involved but that our big 3 would be final stop to most shots. Had we been looking at the second question, we would have realized that while we needed to run our offense to get our stars their shots, we needed to make sure we did it in a way that our role-player big-men were in positions to be a scoring threat, even if they will pass it out 90% of the time.
This offseason our best bet will be a return to fundamentals since we don't have any players that we need to focus on. All players will be required to produce and the best way to ensure production is to ensure that they can do it in the simplest, easiest way. Hopefully all players will make self-improvements over the summer but they will still have weaknesses. Coach needs to address these weaknesses and mold our O and D to hide these weaknesses.

the late season swoon is definitely partly on JTIII but mostly on the players. Austin has not done well late season except for his FR year for various situations but one consistent has been his inapparent inability to work through it. There are multiple aspects in Austin's game that point to him kind of coasting along, whether it is him missing D assignments and watching players drive past/shoot over him or just his general disinterested look. In HS and even intramurals, if I missed all of a certain type of shot in a game, I would go in the GYM and take hundreds of that shot, starting set, then on the move. Players need to find some way to get themselves out of a slump. Not sure if it is just Austin or JTII? Maybe since we had the loss of Chris, JTIII didn't have the time in practice to allow the players sufficient shooting time. Although, that should be the player's responsibility in their own time.

on recruiting: yes we need athletes but what we need are smart players that are willing to work. Players that if they aren't scoring on O, can play some D and lock the other team down. Players that if their shots aren't falling, they will just run the offense until they find the easy shots for their teammates it will make for them instead of breaking down and taking long/contested/non-settled 3s/jumpshots/blind drives and bigmen that are either a black hole or worthless, and you know from the second they touch the ball. We need players that play D with an intensity, communicate, and stay active. At the same time on O they need to understand their restrictions, play with intensity, and play smart.

finally, whipple, great point about OOC scheduling. We don't need a great SOS to get into the tourney. The only major benefits I see from it are 1) helps in creating a high RPI 2) both are considered for seeding, not only fans' enjoyment. We don't need to work to get the 1 SOS but I feel like this OCC was a good make-up for this year's Hoyas. We faced a wide variety of teams and teams that were supposed to get us ready for BE and NCAA tourney. Now did they wear us out too much? Maybe, but we had an experienced team and it should have been beneficial. JTIII has shown in the past that he can get a pretty good feel for what this team needs re scheduling so be prepared for a weaker schedule next year to give his team more time to gel and learn. Maybe one big game early of OOC to give us a feel of where we are and another one near the end of OOC to see how far we have gotten.

[prhoya]

Thanks for the clarification.
I wasn't counting NIT.

[gujake]

Mar 19, 2011 16:30:13 GMT -5 cosmopolitanhoya said:

again, its not reali the talent. comin outta high school, all these cats had WAY more talents than wallace/green/hibbert. talent is there. thats why we were so ecstastic when we got free/wright/greg, cuz if we achieved ff4 with 3-4 star players, we can def. go win that champsionship with 5 star players. turns out thats not the case... those of u who question free/wright in their college career, u guys are being ridiculous. only guards that were more talented than those 2 were rose/mayo/gordon. not even nolan smith were better than those 2 and coach jt3 failed to develop em.

So you think JT3 totally forgot how to develop players after the 08 class graduated?

It turns out that group of players WAS more talented than this group... just because some recruiting service says a guy is going to be good doesn't make it so. They are guessing - and they often guess wrong.

[jester]

I don't think III is a great coach, I don't think we had that much athleticism on this team (esp down low - you will never win a NCAA game with one big 1-3 and another 0-0 with 8 combined TOs). However, I do think we had decent personnel in terms of skill and experience and depth. Richmond is not the second coming the Fab 5. They play smart with little turnovers, play hard. Only one guy seems to be more athletic than Hoyas, and maybe their big is more polished.

My complaint is our ball movement hasnt been great overall, D not there, and stupid plays continue (Chris giving ball to Nate with 4 on shot clock at top of key). Yeah thats on the players ultimately but it just really scares me that things have become a trend which means the coach isnt getting it through. Maybe its just this crop of players but we need Sims and Lubick to improve...Hollis showed us some things last night...hopefully playing in more natural position in future will help things.

[damnhoya]

It's fine to say VCU is a good team and there is no shame in losing to them. Having said that, we got abused yesterday. It's not a matter of losing, but how we lost. Same thing as last year against Ohio. Ohio wasn't a good team as was evident by Tennessee killing them by 15 in their second round game. We gave up 97 pts to Ohio (23 pts above their average that year). They also hit 12 3 pointers (trend emerging?!). How many 3s did VCU hit last night? That's right. 12 also. Ohio shot 56.5% from 3! VCU shot 48% from 3. Losing by 18 to VCU and by 14 to Ohio is just unacceptable (and the losses were even bigger than those margins in my opinion). I think reading the recap article from last year's loss to Ohio is enlightening. Same problems. You could have switched "Ohio" for "VCU" and reprinted the article this year.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031904356.html

What is the most troubling to me is the lack of adjustments in both games. Both opposing coaches and players commented on it (and when there were adjustments, they were too little, too late). And as a fan, watching both games, you sit there and keep asking yourself, "when will the adjustments come?", and they don't. The answer isn't simply to say, "they were really hot, there is nothing we could do".

And many people have posted it, but we need to stop playing a brand of basketball where our offense has become a series of passes around the 3 point line until someone jacks up a 3 and hopes it goes in. Granted, our frontcourt wasn't that strong this year and maybe we don't have the guys to drive to the basket (Austin didn't use his big body enough this year), but the offense was very stagnant for the past month (and that wasn't just this year).

I think III does a pretty good job developing players as I think all of the guys he has helped put in the league have high IQs. But I think he needs to develop his players earlier. Green/Hibbert were lucky in that III had no choice but to play them as freshmen. Nate looked lost last night, Markel was ok, but Moses should have played more this year. I will stand by that even though people will say he wasn't ready. If he would have gotten more minutes throughout the year, he couldn't have played any worse than our frontcourt last night. Moses has the body of a MAN. Use it. I can't wait for Tyler to get to Gtown because he isn't afraid to be a bruiser inside. We also need more intensity/more fire on the team (and no, I'm not accusing players of not "wanting it"). I was happy Chris got T'ed up last night. He set the tone and I'm thankful I got to see him play one more time as a Hoya. That's why I'm very excited for Jabril's arrival to the hilltop. He's not afraid to call people out and he won't back down from anybody.

Next year will be interesting because the Hoyas will be picked to be a lower-middle of the pack team in the Big East. So it's incumbent on III to develop the young guys next year (and to give guys like Vee the minutes they deserve). I'm sure we are going to see a predictable starting 5 of Starks, Clark, Thompson, Lubick and Sims but I REALLY hope III surprises me for once. And I know III is working very hard on the recruiting trail but the most immediate need for this team is to go grab Ochefu ASAP (and if we can nab Porter, that would be fantastic). Grab Porter and let's get bigger. As one example, I would love to see a potential line up of Starks, Hollis/Jabril, Porter, Nate and Tyler/Moses on the floor. Would be fun to watch.

[HometownHoya]

Players determine how much they develop...Coaches can only tell the players what to work on

[adlai]

Mar 19, 2011 14:00:45 GMT -5 rammajamma said:

adlai - clearly whatever is said will not change your mind, and, in all fairness there probably is not a right answer to any of this vs. a series of opinions.

My main point remains, however, that JTIII is the leader and is therefore accountable for the team's performance. His Big East record since 2006 is as follows:

2011 10-8
2010 10-8
2009 7-11
2008 15-3
2007 13-3
2006 10-6

He is 27-27 the last three seasons. I think that performance warrants review and accountability. To quote an earlier post, I am no advocating changing the coach, but the coach needs to change.

Peace be with you.

rammajamma - It doesn't seem that you or many others are overly willing to change opinions either, so take my intransigence for what it's worth.

You're right about the conference record. Of course, if you don't take the endpoint of three years ago that record goes to 42-30 and one more year back takes it to 55-33. In seven years at the helm, JTIII has one year under .500 in the BE which has been the toughest conference in the nation during that time. He has not dominated in the same manner every year, but neither have most of its hall of fame coaches either. Even with a likely all-American on his team, Calhoun guided UConn to .500 in conference this year.

I too hope JTIII continues to grow as a coach. At the same time, the criticism that has come seems a bit over the top to me. I continue to think that JTIII has done a great job in his time as our coach and think his accomplishments also need to be acknowledged.

Perhaps I think of the world in too probabilistic a manner, but it seems to me that the program is not in a state of crisis. I generally don't put too much stock in a single game or even a few games in a row because they fall at a certain time of the year. Random things happen in each game that generally even out over the season, although some teams get very fortunate and others get quite unlucky in a given game. Our run to the final four was accompanied by a lot of fortunate events and while our big three going 0-16 from three last night also seems like a bit of an outlier.

JTIII guided us to a 3 seed last year and to wins over both national title finalists. He took a team without a strong inside presence this year and was on track to at least grab a 3 seed before CW's injury. We can say that the end of the season is more important and certainly that's what people remember in the end. However, in thinking about the quality of the program and its trajectory, I believe that taking a sample that includes a full season is a better judge than a sample that only includes March.

As a result, you're right, consistent high seeds, high rankings, and high RPIs make it hard for me to be overly critical of JTIII. That is my standard and it doesn't take rose colored glasses for me to see the world this way. There are a ton of other schools that would love to have him right now. That doesn't mean I think he's the best coach in the NCAAs, but I do think he is a very good coach and one that I hope remains at G'town for many years to come.

[adlai]

Mar 19, 2011 11:27:54 GMT -5 SDHoya said:

We have been beaten down the stretch the last few years by undermanned, undersized teams that quite frankly want it more. If you can't blame that on the coaching, I don't know what you can. Look, JTIII has his style, and it gets us some big wins mid season every year. Witness high rankings every January/Febrauary. But CBB is played in March. And if you can't prepare your team to go in mentally tough, fight through slumps and play with pride, then you don't belong on the sideline.

I like JTIII. I don't think it makes sense to fire him right now. But, if you don't think these are fair criticisms that he and his staff need to address, then you need to take the rose-colored glasses off.

If you are this frustrated with JTIII and his system right now, I'd hate to hear what you had to say about Bud Black after baseball season ended last year.

[Hoyaholic]

OK my turn.

I don't typically post often because usually my thoughts on any particular issue / game have already been well communicated by other, more knowledgeable, posters on the board, but I haven't seen any discussion of what I think was the primary problem this season.

*** Spoiler alert, it's not the coaching.

Our offensive "system", like many others, is predicated on creating quality looks for high-value shots; namely open threes and lay-ups. It was highly successful at doing so. However, in the second half of our season players simply failed to make those shots.

Somehow, during the course of the season, one by one, our players seemed, for lack of a better term, to lose their MoJo (or confidence...or skill...call it what you want).

1. It started with Jason. Early into the BE season we all took note as he seemed to suffer a crisis of confidence. The JC we saw in conference play was frankly a shell of the assassin that iced the Missouri game with three straight dagger 3's in OT. To draw a golfing parallel, he appeared to my eyes to have caught a case of the yips. Although he continued to play solid D and salted away several games for us from the line (a fact that should not be minimized), his outside threat was eliminated, and the team lost one of its "Big Three."

2. Freeman. Oh good lord what happened to Freeman? Perhaps it was the ankle injury, but that doesn't seem to explain the absolute train wreck that was his last 8 games. I posted after the Syracuse game (senior day) that the most disconcerting aspect of the game was that Austin couldn't throw it in the ocean. He had six 3pt attempts in the first half; five misses - not one even caught inside-rim - and one make (a bank shot from the top of the key). Frankly we could have started Henry at the 2 and had better outside shooting results. If Clark had the yips, Freeman had the shanks; however, he was able to mask his problems by being a much more aggressive driver, and he still managed to put meaningful points on the board. Nevertheless, we were becoming more and more one-dimensional; the wheels were coming off on the offensive end, and opposing coaches were taking notice.

[What temporarily hid our problems was that as AF started slumping, Chris got hot. His 3pt shooting, which was atrocious for most of the year, carried the load for a 3-game stretch (Marquette-UCONN-USF) where he went 12-21.]

3. Oh crap, now Chris gets hurt.

4. At least we still have Julian, right? JV is coming off an inspired stretch of basketball - arguably his best as a Hoya - where he carried us for prolonged periods in several games, most notably the second half against Villanova. I am running low on golf analogies, but suffice to say that JV went Tin Cup and shot a whopping 10% from the field for the rest of the season. We enter the era of 48 ppg.

As Hoya fans, we knew CW was vital to our success, but we were still shocked at how poor the team looked without him. In retrospect, we should not have been. The truth is that most of the team had been underachieving - on a personal level - for many games. Some will argue that it was a systemic (read, coaching) problem, but I don't see it that way. I would argue that this was a very good team that was able to put together a winning streak even as key personnel were turning into ghosts, because of, and not in spite of, the coaching philosophy.

I recall personally lamenting that in the midst of our win streak, we had only one comfortable win (SJU at home). In retrospect it is clear that we were simply never firing on all cylinders during that stretch.

No coach can overcome the loss of essentially all its offensive weapons. Last night VCU went 12-25 from 3, many of which were open shots; we went 5-26, and our shots were just as wide open. Reverse the numbers and we win by 20+.

It may sound trite, but its the shooting, stupid. Last year we lost to USF and the board went ballistic about how the team lacked fire and passion; our next game we smoked Villanova and we were a Hoyatalk consensus Final Four contender. The only difference is that we hit our shots in one game and missed them in the other.

Some may reasonably argue that we should not be so dependent on the 3pt shot. To an extent I agree, and I concede that our talent level in the front court is of a sub-major conference level. Nevertheless, we spread our 3pt scoring risk around 3 or 4 players, unlike, say Seton Hall or Providence.

Last year and early this season, AF and JC were two of the best shooters in the country; one could argue that last season AF was THE best pure shooter in the country. For the last 8 games, he may have been the worst among those who took a meaningful number of shots. You can't fault JTII for drawing up plays for guys with a history of making shots, who then miss them.

On the bright side, I am starting to see a VERY high ceiling for Hollis. I can't recall the last guy we had who could create (and make) his own shot like he can.

We'll get'em next year (or more likely the year after that).

[DanMcQ]

Great analysis Hoyaholic. Makes a lot more sense (and matches what these eyes saw) than all the blather about "lack of heart and pride" being thrown around here.

[gujake]

adlai,

I also think in a probabilistic manner and I am also very pro-JT3. Sometimes strange things can happen due to luck or other factors (see Davidson 08).

That said, it's not like we were an extremely good team this year that just got unlucky. We are currently ranked 40th according to KenPom, and that's the worst finish we've had since 2005 when we finished 42nd. We have real problems right now. I don't think we are close to a "crisis", but the problems are real imo.

[gujake]

Poor shooting was definitely a big factor in the late-season meltdown, but let's not kid ourselves like that was the only problem (I would also argue that the quality of our shots went way down - III said so himself in pregame quotes... but yes, we did miss more open shots). Defense was horrible all season long except for a few games, and we had no interior presence among other things.

[Madgesdiq]

Mar 19, 2011 20:10:14 GMT -5 DanMcQ said:

Great analysis Hoyaholic. Makes a lot more sense (and matches what these eyes saw) than all the blather about "lack of heart and pride" being thrown around here.

Agreed.

RDFs rants jumped the shark in 2005.