Game 1 - Jacksonville

Have you ever choked on Cheerios? Your initial reaction is Oh no, I am choking but then you realize that it's not that bad since you can still breathe and eventually the discomfort will go away. That is how I felt after last night's game.

I like numbers so I will begin with some numbers to get my points across -

Number of offensive rebounds for Georgetown: 7
Number of offensive rebounds for Jacksonville: 19

Number of players on Georgetown over 6'6'' that played at least 10 minutes: 3
Number of players on Jacksonville over 6'6'' that played at least 10 minutes: 1

Number of players on Georgetown under 6'0'' that played at least 10 minutes: 0
Number of players on Jacksonville under 6'0''' that played at least 10 minutes: 2

It is the same problem we had last year and it continues into this season despite a new collection of big men. We just can't rebound. Other than that frightening stat, things seemed in order. Although I was annoyed/nervous/disappointed last night, this morning I feel a little bit better.

- We actually hit our free throws at the end of the game
- We did a reasonable job handling the ball
- Stifling defense was back
- Greg Monroe had an impressive game (people say it, but I do not think he is leaving early, he's not that good)
- The missed three pointers aren't too concerning, will take time to get used to new line
- I am hoping the Omar Wattad experiment is over (five shots - all threes in twelve minutes, and missed all of them)

Prediction for the season:
(18-11, 10-8) 8 Seed come March
Key Wins: Syracuse (H), West Virginia, Marquette (H), Villanova
Key Losses: Memphis, Duke, 2nd Game of Old Spice, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Marquette (A), Syracuse (A), Louisville

Strength of schedule/conference gets us in. We drop out of top 25 by end of January back in by end of season. Rough January BE schedule will put us below .500 in the league for the first time in JTIII's tenure (excluding 1-2 start to '06-'07 season)

Starting Five
Sapp - Solid Senior season, 2nd team all Big East
Wright - Phenomenal season, put on national radar for next season, 1st team all Big East
Freeman - Decent season as a role player
Summers - Horrendous season, no accolades at end of year
Monroe - Great against crappy teams, not to be found against top Big East teams, unanimous Big East All-Rookie team selection

Bench
Jason Clark makes his case to be a starter next year
Vaughn is solid off bench but plays no more than 10 minutes a game (i.e. he can't replace Ewing, which means we won't have as many Technical fouls)


Good talk.