Former John Thompson Jr. player "Bashful" weights in on criticism of John Thompson III and his system.

There has been much consternation about the recent two losses by the Hoyas and after the Cincinnati game some criticism of Coach JTIII emerged on this and other blogs. After my good friend Sleepy Hoya has penned a somewhat facetious article this week, I thought the discussion deserved a more detailed look. The focus of the dyspepsia revolves around the "Georgetown/ Princeton" offense and its effectiveness in the Big East (strategic concerns) and, of course, the tactical considerations of substituting, play calling after time outs and other coaching decisions.

Continue reading this post »

In a series of articles this week, Sports Illustrated has cited Hoyas junior Hollis Thompson and senior Henry Sims as breakout players and keys to Georgetown's early season success.

Here are the links to the Hollis and Sims posts, and I particularly enjoy this nugget from Luke Winn on Sims:

As a senior, he's more assertive in the post, is a threat to dribble-drive on opposing centers from the top of the key, and his playmaking skills from the elbow position in the Hoyas' hybrid-Princeton offense have vastly improved. Sims' has a team-high (by far) assist rate of 33.0 percent, and he's the only player over 6-4 in the top 75 of the national assist rate standings. He has, thus far, been the best playmaking big man in the country -- a development that not even Thompson could see coming. "I don't want to talk about it too much," he said, "because I don't want to jinx anything."

Best playmaking big man in the country? Combine that with our earlier post today that exclaimed a Sweet Sixteen appearance now a "pretty standard expectation", and I'd suggest the Delusion Train has officially left the station.

The great Ted Leonsis, proud Georgetown graduate and owner of the Verizon Center, has responded to our demand for more salt at Hoyas games in a groundbreaking request relayed in this week's Casual Awards.

Regular readers of THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON would have noted over the weekend our failure in getting some delicious salt for our Greene Turtle fries. Yes, we gave props to Leonsis for even giving us the opportunity to drink Stella and eat pulled pork sliders thanks to the Greene Turtle. But no salt? WE DEMANDED ACTION.

Leonsis responds after The Jump:

Continue reading this post »

Roy Hibbert sure is the media king of Indiana.  First, he read you a poem over the phone.   Now, he is making a special guest appearance on the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation, tonight at 8:30 EST.  As always, feel free to stop by to live blog the historic event.

44 days until the season opener.

Kyle Anderson, Schmyle Blandeman, it's Friday and it's time to relax!  Kick back and enjoy this piece from the awesome site Rumors on the Internets about former Georgetown Hoya and NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo and what exactly went down when he uttered that legendary question asking the masses who wants to have sex with him.

Time and retelling have shaped this tale in strange ways, but the basics are always the same - Dikembe Mutombo, towering over the crowd, demands to know who will sex him. Today, however, the prevailing version of this story has been meaningfully altered from the version I first heard over a decade ago.

Awesome.

The Hoyas got back to campus early this morning after their flight was delayed in Toronto for several hours. While most people will only remember this trip for the brawl, hoya fans will remember it as the start of a great season where the team bonded for life.

The team had a great trip where they did not suffer a single loss and got an early jump on the season. It was great as fans to have so much coverage on the team in the off-season.  Heck the amount of media coverage we got on the team in china was unprecedented. I want to thank the athletic department for allowing us fans to get a glimpse behind the veil of secrecy that has long been standard at Georgetown. Getting to see the players just goofing around in their free time during site seeing was really refreshing.

While we won't know how much our success in China will translate to the Big East, we do know that we have a great group of kids who represent the university well and that we will be proud to cheer on. We certainly look like we have a lot of potential and could surprise in the Big East.

Our rebounding numbers were very encouraging. We out rebounded every opponent (that we have a box score for). A really nice development is that we're hitting the offensive glass. In the three games we had offensive rebounding rates of 39%, 37%, and 51%. Adding up the numbers from all 3 games we had an offensive rebounding % of 42.4% If we can average anywhere close to that we'd be very dangerous. Now I don't expect us to hit those numbers, but if we can get our OR% above 35% it will definitely be a huge boon for our offense.

We shot a respectable 35.6% from 3pt range on the trip. Hollis 4-11(3-6 in the first 2 games), Jason 6-15(2-5 every game) are the only reliable threats however. Aaron, Jabril, Markel, Otto, Greg, Mikael, and Nate can all make the shot, but have not proven they can do so at a reliable rate yet.

Another encouraging sign we can hope to take from the box scores is our high assist and steal numbers. We average 20.3 assists per game over in china and 10.3 steals. However, we also turned the ball over 13 times a game which suggests that ball control will again be a problem. But if the Hoyas can up their turnovers forced like they did in China then this may not be as big of a problem for the Hoyas as in years past.

Again all this is based on stats from exhibitions against teams we do not know the quality of, so take this all with a grain of salt.

JTIII always says that each team is different and has to learn what will work best for that team in order to go out and win games. Last year's team's strength was on the perimeter with Austin and Chris, so that's the way we played focusing on guard play and the 3 point shot. In '08 the focus was on big Roy and in 09 and 10 Monroe was the focal point. JTIII will adjust to fit this groups talent. I expect more transition, more dribble penetration, and more focus on defense from this years group.

No matter what happens on the court. This glimpse that the trip to China has given us is greatly encouraging. This group is at the very least entertaining and it should be a fun season no matter what the results.

Only 50 more days till midnight madness.

In 26 days, Kyle Anderson will alter the fate of Georgetown basketball, JT3's career, and radically inflate or depress the level of delusion at THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON when he makes his college decision on September 20th,  his birthday. Here's why Kyle Anderson absolutely must, under all circumstances, come to Georgetown. 

Kyle Anderson was born for JT3's offense: If you close your eyes and write up a scouting report for JT3's dream player, it's going to be eerily similar to anything you'll find written about Kyle Anderson (from ESPN: "He is a great passer with excellent court vision and is a good decision maker and is probably best playing a 'point forward' position"). Ever since HoyaSinceBirth brought to our attention the 6'8 point guard, it didn't take long to figure out he would thrive at Georgetown and we'd kill to have him here.

More undeniable and persuasive logic after the jump

Continue reading this post »