Georgetown - Notre Dame 11/16/2024 Discussion

[s4hoyas]

Mulready can shoot...I think he had a couple of 3s in one of our games...had 3 or 4 in the scrimmage, and I recall that he had 6 in one of his prep games...good defender as well...he's my sleeper...

[hoyasaxa2003]

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

[MCIGuy]

Nov 14, 2024 11:19:49 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Nov 14, 2024 8:28:38 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

If its III's version, well, my enthusiasm wanes.

Ahh, yes, you know, the one that got us to a Final Four.

I'm still somewhat convinced our fan base's hatred of the Princeton and obsession with guards driving led to some of the ensuing recruiting issues more than the other way around. JTIII's offense was fantastic -- so many easy buckets.

This post of yours goes right hand in hand with the pure PG thing. Next you'll be posting that we need to full court press like the 80s!

It's 2024, folks.

That Final Four is cancelled out by five or so ridiculous early exits. Do the math. If you and others want to ignore that then so be it but don’t act as if some of us are being too ungrateful. You guys seem to think as we won a championship or something and therefore all was alright.

I will reiterate once more….when the new Big East was being formed III publicly referred to it as the “ Georgetown League” because he was cocky as hell about himself and his program being the most important things about the reformed league. And why not? Momentum was on his side with Otto’s last season taking place while league negotiations were happening. And then the program fell over a cliff and Jay Wright and Villanova took advantage of an opening. I will not pat III on the back for a Final Four run and one other decent post season run the year before. He squandered what he had by not tweaking his offense to better compensate for the thoroughbreds he was bringing in. Even his players like Wright and Freeman feel that way too. People here cling to revisionism for reasons I can’t understand. I get that the coaching for the program following III’s firing has been mostly disastrous. Maybe that is why people look back on III’s run so fondly. I do not because I remember a guy who had the opportunity to lead the program to the same success as Wright’s Wildcats. But he failed at it because of his own stubbornness. If the team is a high seed losing before the first weekend time and time again and if it is doing so with different players then the blame goes to the coach. If opposing mid majors could shut down the Hoyas’ offense every NCAA tourney, then the offense isn’t great. People throw out excuses about how the defense was the problem in those upsets. My counter would be that if the defense does let you down you may want to have an offense that can get you out of a hole. But other than one great game against the Tar Heels, III’s offense was incapable of doing this. And if the Hoyas played a physical rugged team that punched them in the mouth, the only answer III had was a stalled offense to create opportunities for back door cuts. Just because I cringe over what the Hoyas have become since does not mean I miss seeing Hoya bigs holding the ball above the three point line to wait for cutters.

Did III make any adjustments? No. Not during games and certainly not during any offseason. What he did was lick his wounds and have a pity-party conversation with a writer of the Washington Post during which he promised he would get the program its second championship banner in the future. Of course this didn’t happen unfortunately. Is it a coincidence that there has never been any serious whispers of other high major schools pursuing III since his days at Gtown ended? I don’t think so. Am I being harsh? Maybe. But I have also been just as critical of the blunders his dad added to his own legacy and that guy at least won a d**n championship. I am thankful for the Big East regular season championships III won as well as the Big East Tournament win. I am grateful of the Final Four trip as well as the recruiting of high caliber players like Freeman, Wright, Monroe and Porter. But there should have been much more great accomplishments and more great memories for us Hoya fans. He ultimately failed to deliver. And what stings is that Jay Wright proved a small Catholic school could still win championships. Most painful of all was Wright, leading into Hibbert’s senior year, was interviewed by The Hoya and claimed that III’s success at GU was the standard he wanted Villanova to match. And all Wright did was win countless BE season championships and BET tourneys, appeared in four Final Fours and won two national titles. THAT is something to celebrate and yearn for. I get why Nova fans feel warm and fuzzy thinking about that era. I don’t get why any Hoya fans feel the same way about III’s run.

[MCIGuy]

Nov 15, 2024 14:30:31 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

But those turnovers were not the result of him making mistakes when he was trying to score a bucket for himself, they have mostly come off of miscues when he was trying to make passes to teammates. He has to clean it up but at least he has the right idea.

[MCIGuy]

Nov 14, 2024 22:38:09 GMT -5 dense said:

Joey's son looks like he is gonna be a player and he worships his dad and seems to want to follow him to Georgetown so chill on anything negative. He is ranked top 100 for 2027

This whole site is 85% negativity which is not a good look in general. But we can’t write anything unflattering about Joey Brown? And you actually think his son is reading this thread?

The Blue & Gray board shouldn't count against that total.
Overall, the board seems more upbeat for a program which has been in the woods for almost a decade.--Admin

[calhoya]

Nov 15, 2024 14:30:31 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

Agree with this. I think the preseason hype has placed an incredible amount of pressure on this kid. Yes he is getting NIL and a lot of publicity and with that comes the burden of expectations. But ultimately he is still just a 19-20 year old kid and that alone suggests that it may take time to adapt to the challenges of a new program in a much more difficult league and a shrinking fan base desperate for some positive momentum for the program. I do not know if it might take another couple of weeks or months or if it will happen at all, but Mack looks the part of a legitimate PG and he allows Epps to focus on other elements of his game which I think is a positive. What Cooley needs to do is use the depth on the bench to pull Mack (and any other player) when they get out of control during a game. That is part of the learning process too. Depth may be the single biggest improvement of this team over the past several years.

Not certain what happens tomorrow but the key for me is what happens after tomorrow. How does this team respond to its first high major challenge--win or lose.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2024 15:15:30 GMT -5 calhoya said:

Nov 15, 2024 14:30:31 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

Agree with this. I think the preseason hype has placed an incredible amount of pressure on this kid. Yes he is getting NIL and a lot of publicity and with that comes the burden of expectations. But ultimately he is still just a 19-20 year old kid and that alone suggests that it may take time to adapt to the challenges of a new program in a much more difficult league and a shrinking fan base desperate for some positive momentum for the program. I do not know if it might take another couple of weeks or months or if it will happen at all, but Mack looks the part of a legitimate PG and he allows Epps to focus on other elements of his game which I think is a positive. What Cooley needs to do is use the depth on the bench to pull Mack (and any other player) when they get out of control during a game. That is part of the learning process too. Depth may be the single biggest improvement of this team over the past several years.

Not certain what happens tomorrow but the key for me is what happens after tomorrow. How does this team respond to its first high major challenge--win or lose.

I agree. I think Mack's turnover percentage is likely to come down a lot. Many of the mistakes are the result of rushed decisions or bad passes, and I think that is something that experience will help. That said, we aren't playing killer defenses, and even the high majors we are playing like Notre Dame aren't world beaters. I expect Mack to improve on the turnovers pretty quickly. He needs to tighten it up well before Big East play.

On the other hand, Sorber's turnover rate through two games is 9.7, which is amazing. It's unrealistic to expect that to continue, but he's played great so far. On the other hand, Halaifonua has turned it over a ton in his limited minutes (44.0).

[jwp91]

Nov 15, 2024 15:30:18 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Nov 15, 2024 15:15:30 GMT -5 calhoya said:

Agree with this. I think the preseason hype has placed an incredible amount of pressure on this kid. Yes he is getting NIL and a lot of publicity and with that comes the burden of expectations. But ultimately he is still just a 19-20 year old kid and that alone suggests that it may take time to adapt to the challenges of a new program in a much more difficult league and a shrinking fan base desperate for some positive momentum for the program. I do not know if it might take another couple of weeks or months or if it will happen at all, but Mack looks the part of a legitimate PG and he allows Epps to focus on other elements of his game which I think is a positive. What Cooley needs to do is use the depth on the bench to pull Mack (and any other player) when they get out of control during a game. That is part of the learning process too. Depth may be the single biggest improvement of this team over the past several years.

Not certain what happens tomorrow but the key for me is what happens after tomorrow. How does this team respond to its first high major challenge--win or lose.

I agree. I think Mack's turnover percentage is likely to come down a lot. Many of the mistakes are the result of rushed decisions or bad passes, and I think that is something that experience will help. That said, we aren't playing killer defenses, and even the high majors we are playing like Notre Dame aren't world beaters. I expect Mack to improve on the turnovers pretty quickly. He needs to tighten it up well before Big East play.

On the other hand, Sorber's turnover rate through two games is 9.7, which is amazing. It's unrealistic to expect that to continue, but he's played great so far. On the other hand, Halaifonua has turned it over a ton in his limited minutes (44.0).

Sorber has shown pretty reliable hands in the post which as we know is an absolutely critical skill. Julius has shown some questionable hands and some questionable decision-making attempting to dribble behind the back in traffic in the paint.

[jackofjoy]

Anybody else have a parlay of Tyson with a knockout and Hoyas covering? ;-)

[SFHoya99]

Nov 15, 2024 13:51:28 GMT -5 s4hoyas said:

Mulready can shoot...I think he had a couple of 3s in one of our games...had 3 or 4 in the scrimmage, and I recall that he had 6 in one of his prep games...good defender as well...he's my sleeper...

Mulready is 0-1 from three for us.

He's a good defender. I don't know if he can be a sleeper -- we was ranked like 70th in the country as a recruit coming in. But I've never heard that he's a good shooter, and I know in the last game he pretty much exclusively drove to the rim.

[SFHoya99]

Nov 15, 2024 14:31:45 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Our ensuing pro style offense was amazing, truly. We're like 0 for the last three years and you're sneering at tournament trips, not to mention a Final Four!

The culprit in most of those upsets and in III's general end downfall was the defense, not the offense. And he was a lot better than what came before and a lot better than what came after. Stop pretending that we had been any good since Iverson left. There was a whole lot of NIT there.

[SFHoya99]

Nov 15, 2024 14:30:31 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

There's a subsection of this board that would rather die than say anything flattering about Epps. Heck, we've even seen him blamed for Mack's struggles.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2024 16:10:13 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Nov 15, 2024 14:30:31 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I know we are only in two games, but I don't think people are appreciating how drastically different Epps has played the last two games. Last year, Epps "used" 30.5% of possessions, this year he's only at 20.2. Will that go up? Very possibly. Last year at Harvard, Mack "used" 29.4% of possessions, and this year so far he's at 23.8.

To me, the bigger problem with Mack is decision-making and turnovers. His turnover rate through two games is 31.8 (really bad), compared to 15.9 (really good for a point guard) last year.

There's a subsection of this board that would rather die than say anything flattering about Epps. Heck, we've even seen him blamed for Mack's struggles.

Yes, it's silly. There is always somebody who is a fan whipping boy, like Jesse Govan, for example. And oftentimes, that person is the best player on the team.

So far, Epps has played fine. He can still create. I'd like to see his 3 point percentage and efficiency go up, but I think it will with time. If Mulready, Williams, or anybody else, can outplay Epps, that's fine with me. But I am not seeing it so far.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2024 14:31:45 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Did III make any adjustments? No. Not during games and certainly not during any offseason. What he did was lick his wounds and have a pity-party conversation with a writer of the Washington Post during which he promised he would get the program its second championship banner in the future. Of course this didn’t happen unfortunately. Is it a coincidence that there has never been any serious whispers of other high major schools pursuing III since his days at Gtown ended? I don’t think so. Am I being harsh? Maybe. But I have also been just as critical of the blunders his dad added to his own legacy and that guy at least won a d**n championship. I am thankful for the Big East regular season championships III won as well as the Big East Tournament win. I am grateful of the Final Four trip as well as the recruiting of high caliber players like Freeman, Wright, Monroe and Porter. But there should have been much more great accomplishments and more great memories for us Hoya fans. He ultimately failed to deliver. And what stings is that Jay Wright proved a small Catholic school could still win championships. Most painful of all was Wright, leading into Hibbert’s senior year, was interviewed by The Hoya and claimed that III’s success at GU was the standard he wanted Villanova to match. And all Wright did was win countless BE season championships and BET tourneys, appeared in four Final Fours and won two national titles. THAT is something to celebrate and yearn for. I get why Nova fans feel warm and fuzzy thinking about that era. I don’t get why any Hoya fans feel the same way about III’s run.

They may not have worked, but JT3 did make adjustments. By the 2013-2015 timeframe, our offense didn't look anything like it did in 2007, for example, and operated at a much faster pace. And the failure to adjust to the new defensive rules after 2013 really killed JT3. On that end, he did try things, they just didn't work. While we had a bunch of NCAA early exits, because of those exits it's easy to forget that in the 2008-2015 timeframe we had a lot of really good teams. They may not have made a Sweet 16, but they were often top 25. For a team that has spent the better part of a decade with no hope of even getting ranked, I can see why some might be nostalgic for those days. After all, nostalgia always involves remembering the good and forgetting the bad. It's the same reason a lot of people give John Thompson Jr. a pass on the latter part of his career oftentimes, even though his latter years other than Iverson were not good and did not set up Esherick for success (not to mention his pushing for Ewing likely set the program back at least 5-6 years).

That said, I don't want to fully relitigate the past, nor is this the thread for doing so. I want to beat Notre Dame tomorrow.

[kettlehill]

Patrick Ewing ( and Sleepy ) took this program to amazing heights and to miserable depths ( nothing to do with Sleepy ). We are all the victims of this yo-yo. Let's leave the past behind and appreciate that we have a good young team led by another terrific big man. BTW- for what it's worth- Sorber reminds me of Zo. More and more.

[FrazierFanatic]

Nov 15, 2024 10:53:18 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Nov 14, 2024 8:20:36 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

That’s a good sign because Quigley is always wrong. So the opposite of what he says will happen.

Quigley here. I'll give you that a 5-1 assist to turnover ratio is probably unrealistic but a pg that at least keeps the turnovers down and is the team leader on the floor is absolutely essential if we are to avoid the disaster of the previous 5+ years. Too often in the past we've seen winnable games spin out of control because our pgs just had no idea of how to run the clock, find the open man, or basically not panic. Who can forget the UCONN game two years ago. Last home game of the season. Up by 8 points with less than 4 minutes to play and wind up losing by 8 points! Okay they don't have to lead the world in assists but they definitely need to control the flow of the game and not play hero ball when leading in the last 5 minutes of a game. Epps is the worst and like all of you I was hoping Mack wouldn't be the same. So far I'm just not sure he isn't.

Good points in general. Will certainly be crucial for Mack to calmly run the end game.

[hoyas315]

Hoyas +2.5 right now

[dense]

Nov 15, 2024 14:38:22 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Nov 14, 2024 22:38:09 GMT -5 dense said:

Joey's son looks like he is gonna be a player and he worships his dad and seems to want to follow him to Georgetown so chill on anything negative. He is ranked top 100 for 2027

This whole site is 85% negativity which is not a good look in general. But we can’t write anything unflattering about Joey Brown? And you actually think his son is reading this thread?

I just mena don't write anything, just don't make it too harsh. And yes he probably does. That kid is always on social media so its not far fetched that he could find this thread thru a simple Google search.

[DFW HOYA]

Nov 15, 2024 14:31:45 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Did III make any adjustments? No. Not during games and certainly not during any offseason. What he did was lick his wounds and have a pity-party conversation with a writer of the Washington Post during which he promised he would get the program its second championship banner in the future. Of course this didn’t happen unfortunately. Is it a coincidence that there has never been any serious whispers of other high major schools pursuing III since his days at Gtown ended? I don’t think so. Am I being harsh? Maybe. But I have also been just as critical of the blunders his dad added to his own legacy and that guy at least won a d**n championship. I am thankful for the Big East regular season championships III won as well as the Big East Tournament win. I am grateful of the Final Four trip as well as the recruiting of high caliber players like Freeman, Wright, Monroe and Porter. But there should have been much more great accomplishments and more great memories for us Hoya fans. He ultimately failed to deliver. And what stings is that Jay Wright proved a small Catholic school could still win championships. Most painful of all was Wright, leading into Hibbert’s senior year, was interviewed by The Hoya and claimed that III’s success at GU was the standard he wanted Villanova to match. And all Wright did was win countless BE season championships and BET tourneys, appeared in four Final Fours and won two national titles. THAT is something to celebrate and yearn for. I get why Nova fans feel warm and fuzzy thinking about that era. I don’t get why any Hoya fans feel the same way about III’s run.

JT III is even more an enigma now than he was when he was at Georgetown. As did his father, his career at Georgetown falls into three distinct eras: 1) the rise (2004-08), 2) the plateau (2008-13) and the fall (2013-17). There really was no second act as Wright successfully did at Villanova after getting pounded in the early 2010s. Worse yet, no one seemed to know what do do about it, JT III included.

Was it the departure of his trusted assistants, the visible recruiting misses, the constant presence of the old man in the corner office that started the slide, or did he just lose his confidence after Ohio and FGCU; this, after his salary kicked in to the range of a top 10 compensation nationally? He's never been considered for a job since. What was it? We'll never know, because la famiglia won't say. Still, it's been eight years and he is largely invisible today at Georgetown and in the retired coaches community.

It was a little sad that Patrick Ewing didn't attend the event last week. Ex-coaches at Georgetown, for whatever reason, are estranged from the University, often of their own doing, and they don't come back. Tom O'Keefe took almost 40 years before he was back at a home game, Jack Magee has never come back since 1972, and Craig Esherick's appearance at the event last week was his first public appearance at or around McDonough in 20 years. At that rate, we won't see JT III for quite a while, and maybe even longer for Ewing, now 62.

[RusskyHoya]

Nov 15, 2024 19:01:48 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

He's never been considered for a job since.

This triggers one of my major pet peeves. There is no way you, I, or anyone else on this message board can possibly know this for a fact, unless one of us has had a conversation with the man himself about it.