Deja Vu All Over Again: Georgetown Loses To VCU 74-56 In NCAA Tournament

Terrible end to the season but was fun meeting fellow casualties at the nola gamewatch.

“Where cynical meets suicidal.”

At least the committee did us a favor an scheduled the Hoyas in the last session of the first (er, second) round. We got to watch two full days of basketball without feeling bitter or angry.

and then judgment can be made. Right now there are two possibilities:

1) There is a fundamental flaw in JTIII’s system. The fact he had two future pro starters in Roy and Jeff alongside two NBA draft picks in Summers and Ewing Jr. covered up the serious flaws in this system AND/OR were simply the PERFECT fit for his system that is too niche for most recruits. Think about it: 7’2 C with a touch, that plays D, and can pass out of the high post, NBA level athlete on the wing that can also pass and play D, and an extremely cerebral senior PG in Wallace to run the uber complex offense. Either way if this next wave of recruits follws the Wright/Freeman model then we may need to replace JTIII.

2) Wright and Freeman were simply not winners. To be fair, JTIII’s system looked pretty damn good with Jeff and Roy running the sets. Our D was top 10 in the country during those years and now it is putrid. Maybe a complete lack of commitment on D and a lack of fire in everyone but Wright simply doomed this team. Sure those 2 guys put up great numbers a lot of the time and got a lot of praise, but at the end of the day we really won 0 with them as centerpieces of the team. Love those guys, but have to say I am not sad to see a changing of the guard. In the very least could expose the true issues. Is it JTIII or the Wright/Freeman generation simply not being good enough? We will see.

I applaud the attitude being expressed today. Sort of a postive post career / post season prognosis, I guess. No point in doing otherwise. We came in to this game with various views of cynical (we get crushed again) or delusional (Chris Wright saves the day). Cynical won out, but there is a new season ahead with perhaps lower expectations and thus more forgiving fans. Go HOYAS!

I noticed today on my washing machine that I have a “Normal/Casual” mode but on my dryer separate “Normal” and “Casual” modes. Is it not normal to be casual? Or not casual to be normal?

With paranoia,

NO heart, NO emotion, NO passion, NO toughness just like their coach.

The team displayed a lack of energy, passion, and desire last night. They did not acquit themselves well; in fact I would go so far as to say they downright embarrassed themselves.

When the three’s are not falling, the front court is simply not good enough to pick up the slack. I agree that Lubick will be good as he matures, but Vaughn and Sims? Forget it…they are not D1 caliber players.

The team needs more players with fire…I remember the spark that Patrick Ewing, Jr. could provide off the bench!

I hope next years recruits will bring some of that fire to the team. In the meantime, go Big East!

by my count the big east has 7of11 teams still in the tourney anyone know about the others

was it this group of players ,or was it the coach?

I will decide based on two things: rebounding + defense. I believe in JT3’s offense, I worry about the team’s defense and rebounding.

the wide open looks from 3 were created by an overcollapsing defense, a commitment to switch all screens (that was the halftime adjustment, they switched less), and terrible backcourt defense (that created the wide open lanes to the hoop for a kickout).

it’s quite possible that the players were not good defenders. It’s also quite possible the coaches weren’t teaching good defense. Next year with at least 3 new starters, we’ll know which was the bigger cause.

wondering what if?

that at the beginning of the year, as a result of greg’s leaving early, we expected a mediocre season because of the limitations of the front court, and its impact on the guards.

And despite some bright spots, ultimately that is about where our season wound up. All of his heart and competitiveness did not make JuJu an elite forward, and Lubick remained a freshman who exceeded explanations. That frontcourt “weakness” was exploited all season. Because there was no serious inside or rebounding threat, teams could focus on our exterior offense. Meanwhil our guard were forced to double down on defense to help outmanned interior players and with the rebounding.

That left open the obvious opportunities for exterior two and three point shots by our opponents, and when they were hot – we lost. Turnovers didn’t help much, and I would wager the majority of our turnovers during the course of the season were either by interior players or were the results of failed attempts to get the ball to the interior players.

This, combined with a fundamental strength and weakness of the Princeton Offense – it cannot play well from behind once the team is down double digits- doomed us.

Conceptually to be successful a deliberate offense like ours is designed around limiting possessions in the game for BOTH teams, and through efficiency prevail or make up for lack of athleticism.

Which brings us right back to our defense failing to force inefficient performance by the other team, and turnovers and lack of rebounding degrading our efficiency. and once we fall behind, the problem snowballs because without athleticism we do not score quickly, easily, or in bunches with points off defensive lockdowns. Even last night we had several good defensive moments spoiled by a lack of athletic ability to exploit the opportunity. JuJu’s repeated failure to dunk is not the cause. It is simply another symptom of the overall lack of athleticism, quickness, and length throughout the team.

Best case: Big Man U built its reputation on the backs of All-American post players, and John Thompson III’s tenure has been no different … until 2010-11. After Greg Monroe’s departure to the NBA, Georgetown will be forced to adjust its style, featuring three top guards in Austin Freeman, Chris Wright and Jason Clark. How well the Hoyas adapt to that style — will Thompson let his team run, or will he continue to slow the game down? — will determine whether they finish in the Big East’s top three.

Worst case: Georgetown should remain competitive — those guards are just too good — but if the lack of a true big man is too much for the Hoyas to overcome, they could end up having a just-OK season. A middling Big East season and a No. 6 seed would accurately be considered a letdown.

we got roughly the anticipated worst case, and but for Wright’s injury we would have bettered it slightly.

sucks, but that is the way it goes.

……..why not have an open thread on the state of the Hoyas. Set some ground rules (if you must), but let people exorcise their demons in the hope that we can find some consesus on where we go from here. It would be cathartic and maybe productive.

With paranoia,

Let’s face it. The team’s top players have underperfomed whenever it seemed to be important for them to step up. Of course you can lose games, but the way we played the last games was embarrassing. I stopped watching the game against VCU after 15 minutes, because you could feel that there was no enthusiasm, no fire, no nothing. As for the coming season keep Markel Starks and Jason Clark and try some newbees. Can’t get much worse than this season.

can look on the bright side and say at least we made it to the second round this year.

At least you’re not the 2010-2011 Pitt Panthers!

Egads, what a monumental choke-fest against Butler. Yikes!!!