Questions Linger After Season-Ending Loss to Baylor in NIT
Like a lazy cross-court pass, you could see it coming from a mile away.
Georgetown took a lead early, let Baylor back into the game early in the second half, and down the stretch with the score close, the Hoyas could not execute. Just like that, after shooting 76 percent in the first half, Georgetown was out of the NIT in the first round.
Perhaps worse than the early exit, however, was the sheer predictability of it. For the 10th time since Jan. 25, Georgetown found itself in a game that was within one possession in the final 10 minutes. For the eighth time, the Hoyas found themselves on the losing end.
Indeed, whereas late-game poise and execution became a Georgetown hallmark over the past two seasons, this year’s squad was defined, and hindered, by a complete inability to take control of the game when it mattered most.
Against the Bears, the Hoyas scored on a DaJuan Summers dunk with 6:10 left to take a 67-63 lead. But over the next four-and-a-half minutes, Georgetown failed to score a single point, turning the ball over three times and missing four three-pointers. Meanwhile, Baylor capitalized and took a 72-67 lead.
Then, after pulling with three and forcing a Curtis Jerrells turnover, the Hoyas had a chance to tie the game, but rather than milking the clock down under 10 seconds and working through the offense, sophomore guard Chris Wright pulled up for an NBA-range three-pointer with 14 seconds to go.
Summers had a chance to tie the game on a half-court heave at the last second, but the miracle try fell short.
And now the season is complete. What once seemed so positive, thanks to wins against an NCAA tournament No. 1 seed, a No. 2 seed and two No. 3 seeds (as well as three other tournament teams), the Hoyas are home and idle earlier than in any of Head Coach John Thompson III’s other four seasons on the Hilltop.
After Georgetown fell to St. John’s in the Big East tournament, officially putting an end to any NCAA tournament aspirations, Thompson took a few moments to analyze the team’s surprisingly difficult season.
Throughout the season, Thompson has said it has been the team’s offense that has most frustrated him.
Is it a youth issue?
“I hope so,” Thompson said.
Or is it a product of Georgetown’s more complicated, intricate Princeton-style offense?
“Everyone has a system that they run, whether it is us or whether it is any other team in the NCAA or any other team in the pros,” he added. “And it takes time. It has taken this group a very long time just to get into a rhythm. … I think we have an intelligent group. I think that they can make decisions. It is not rocket science. You’ve heard me say this many times. People talk about our offense too much. It is not that dissimilar from anyone else’s. And so, do we want to screen down, screen across and have little Billy come off the shooter, I trust in their decision making, I trust in their intelligence, I trust in their offensive skill sets that they can make reads and in doing that, eventually, it will make us more difficult to guard and eventually it will make them better basketball players.”
After three straight seasons ranked in Kenpom.com’s top 20 most efficient offenses, the Hoyas fell to 45th this season. Perhaps the absence of Roy Hibbert, Jonathan Wallace and Patrick Ewing Jr. was felt even more than was expected.
In fact, it may be Ewing who the team missed most. Throughout the year, it has been a defensive-minded, rebound-grabbing, energy-exuding glue guy that Georgetown has seemed to miss most. The Hoyas lack little in talent, but simply were unable to put it together.
While Thompson struggled to really put a finger on what was to blame for the team’s demise this season, he spoke of next year with a sense of optimism.
“I think it’s a long season and I’ve said that from the first team meeting, first press conference and during the course of the season: You have to handle the highs and the lows and we haven’t responded well this season to the lows,” Thompson said. “Whether it be from a possession on a court, to a loss, the ability to forget, to learn from, to get the emotion out of it and move on, we haven’t done well this year.
“And I mean that in every aspect, from play to play, to game-to-game. … I’m not trying to put all of it on this, but a large part of it is youth. I’m not trying to place the blame on that but it is a fact. We have one senior, with Jessie [Sapp]. Bryon [Jansen] is a walk on. We have one junior with DaJuan [Summers], and you have Chris [Wright] who is a sophomore but he’s going through the league for this first time, so that factors into it.
“Hopefully, as a coach you hope that the lessons learned, you can learn them quickly and not make the same mistakes. Obviously, we’re going to have the core group back and its not the time to talk about next year, but like I said, I felt confident going into every game this year and the hurt of this year hopefully will help us in the future.”
Thompson’s optimism regarding next season is not without cause. If Monroe stays true to all of his public statements and does indeed return for his sophomore season, the Hoyas should have one of the best big men in the whole country donning the Blue and Gray.
“Definitely I have to get a little stronger,” Monroe said last week in New York. “I mean, the system will get better, I will get better in the system. … There’s never time you can’t improve your game. Just improving everything and doing all the things I did this year and getting better at everything, and try to come out and have a better effort next year.”
Summers has also said he plans to return. And if all of the other young players do indeed elect to return, Thompson should actually have one of the Big East’s more experienced rosters, hard as that may be to believe.
That is to say nothing of the addition of Hollis Thompson and any spring recruits Thompson nabs.
This season has been a bit unbelievable for all involved: coaches, fans and players. But with a productive offseason, the Hoyas have a chance to make next season equally unbelievable.
For the right reasons.
Mar 20 2009 at 7:12 p.m.
Bailey,
Do you SERIOUSLY believe that 1) this same team (minus Sapp, and with the addition of whatever second-rate recruits will still enroll despite having to work with Thompson and despite the complete meltdown of our once-great basketball program) and 2) this same coach, will be competitive next year? If so, you are simply dreaming.
For whatever reason, the longer players stay at Georgetown, the worse they become, including in the simple fundamentals of the game(witness Sapp, who went from a valued starter to a benchwarmer). Jeff Green was smart to get out when he did; Hibbert was not so fortunate. This has a lot to do with our feckless and inconsequential coaching staff, assembled more out of nepotism than merit.
Think about it: we no longer have the ability to execute offensive plays (especially if it involves getting the ball into the paint), we no longer have the ability to penetrate ANY defenses; we can no longer prevent any penetration of our defenses (witness all of the alley-oops Baylor pulled on us) and we have a very difficult time holding on to the ball for very long. This team has severe problems with such basic fundamentals as shooting (either from under the basket or from three-point range), passing (our specialty is the slow-moving wobble which is gravitationally attracted to opposing players), dribbling (lots of off-the-foot bounces), working the clock (we manage to violate the shot clock even when the members of the Hoya Hoop Club are loudly chanting down the seconds left on the shot clock), fouling (commentators always mention how we commit fouls on shooters in three-point territory much more than other teams) and maintaining either a man-to-man or zone defense. Let's face it: the only way we managed to win our final games (including against Villanova) was when our opponents played down to our same sloppy, ham-handed, improvised style of basketball, the type you would be hard pressed to find at any random high school basketball game nowadays.
You think that somehow this same crew (including the guys in suits who take up space on the bench and look confused and helpless a lot) is going to figure out a way to get our groove back...and in the Big East conference??? I think it is more likely to conclude from the current state of the team that we will once again be a doormat in the Big East and be VERY lucky to get into the NIT next year. And if we somehow manage an NIT bid, most likely we will lose in the first round yet again.
What can save us from this fate? That's a tough one to answer. But I suggest we start with a new coach, since the only "Final Four" Thompson seems capable of getting us into these days are one of the bottom four positions in the Big East conference standings.
Mar 20 2009 at 10:44 p.m.
Good post on all of our problems, but you forgot the team's complete inability to rebound, even when dealing with much smaller teams. After someone misses a shot, everyone on our team avoids the ball as if it had a hissing fuse sticking out of it.
Mar 21 2009 at 5:31 p.m.
Bailey, just wanted to say I'm glad this is the last time I will have to read an article of yours. Your dweebness really shines through in your writing.
Mar 23 2009 at 1:36 a.m.
this was a bad season. i still trying to figure out the recruiting. how does sam young, kevin durant,mike beasly get out the area with the talent they have. i am upset with the hoyas and terps. why is this talent getting away. mike anderson the coach of the missouri tigers uses a style of basketball the hoyas use to play except he wasnt offered the job and mike riley wasnt offered the job either. when gtow fired escherick then mike riley should have gotten the position. it took the big east a couple of years to catch up with this boring style of basketball. you have talent but they are being coach like a high school team. sam cooke once has a song (a change is gonna come) how about now?
Mar 23 2009 at 12:33 p.m.
I'll be the first guy to admit that JTIII is not infallible, particularly as it relates to recruiting and rebounding. However, this recent surge of diatribe regarding nepotism/fitness-for-the-job is absolutely laughable. Anyone who was actually on campus during the transition from Escherick to Thompson knows that there was an overabundance of support for JTIII before he was even publicly acknowledged as a serious candidate for the job. You can't fault the school for picking the coach that everybody wanted just because he also happens to be the son of the coach that everybody wished we still had.
Mar 23 2009 at 7:38 p.m.
So there was an "overabundance of support for JTIII before he was even publicly acknowledged as a serious candidate for the job"? Riiiiiiight. Does anyone in the world think that such enthusiasm would have existed in the first place had he not been the son of our most successful coach??? I mean how many of the top schools in the most competitive college sports (football, basketball) recruit coaches from the Ivy League (much less ones with only four years of experience under their belts)?
When Notre Dame cans Charlie Weis, do you think people there will say, "To be competitive again, we definitely need to hire the football coach from Dartmouth...or maybe Columbia. Yeah, that's the ticket" However, if an Ivy League coach were named Ara Parseghian III, the wisdom of such a move would probably not be contested. It would probably backfire on them as it did for us, but ND fans could bask in the reflected glory of another Parseghian for awhile.
Let's face up to facts: JTIII is simply out of his league (literally) and out of his element in the Big East. He simply doesn't have the skills, smarts, toughness and experience of people like Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun (and I am NOT a fan of either of those schools or their whiny, ill-tempered coaches). Thanks to Jeff Green, we managed to make the Final Four in 2007, but success back then should not give Thompson a free pass to mismanage the team for the indefinite future. I mean in March 2007, AIG, Bear Stearns and Citicorp were all flying high too, but when when they hit the wall starting in 2008, their managements were promptly replaced. How many first-round exits from the NIT will people endure before they stop saying "But in 2007 Thompson got us into the Final Four..."
Mar 24 2009 at 1:00 p.m.
Wow, lots of supremely idiotic comments here. Best one has to go to Gtown 09, who manages to make a cheap shot behind the cloak of anonymity. That's brave.
Folks here have short memories. Prior to this year, when was the last time Clown-houn or Boeheim won a game in the NCAA tournament?
Mar 24 2009 at 4:58 p.m.
lots of idiotic comments you say. yeah ok!!! jt3 it is what it is he is coaching these players like there are in the ivy league. besides monroe,summers, and wright everybody else belong playing in ivy,atlantic 10,or horizon leagues. austin freeman is a bum. he is a shooter with no dribble and no defense. the rest of the team besides henry simms and julian vaugn have no heart. i would love to see nolan richardson,mike anderson,gary williams,or even a former gtown player(jaren jackson,patrick ewing,reggie williams,michael graham) coach this team. the coaching position should have been left in the family no matter what. you will never see unc,duke,depaul,arizona offer a position without starting in house first. jt3 might be the son and all but its an insult to coaches or players who have been there for years.
Mar 25 2009 at 6:25 a.m.
I think we are all being a bit too reactionary here. The season clearly was a huge disappointment given the team's torrid start and talent level, and there were numerous instances where fans / pundits could criticize JT III for poor substitution schemes, offensive sets, lack of hustle, poor defense, questionable shot selection and the like. He may not be as good as we thought he was in the Final Four year nor as bad as some think he is based on this year. We need to give JTIII more time to show that he can get the most out of a group of very talented recruits.
This was a young, and flawed team. Very little has been written about how critical Jon Wallace was to this team, and how much, imo, this team missed his judgment and leadership. Wright may be a better athlete, but he is more of a 2 guard than a point guard and he lacked the experience and judgment to execute the offense in critical situations. It's laughable that Monroe would ocnsider going pro -- he's immensely talented and has a great intuitive feel for the game, but is physically soft(witness the times he got stripped down the stretch in the Baylor game). And Summers needs to work on his dribble and the consistency of his outside shot. When you add possible on and off court chemistry issues to the mix, the result is a disappointing season marred by underperformance.