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In case you missed it, there was this great piece by CSN Washington's Ben Standig in which Standig was able to get Georgetown coach John Thompson III to open up about a variety of topics, most notably on the "Princeton offense" and his Georgetown system. The full article is linked above and below are some of the interesting quotables:
- "Look, everyone has a system, but ours gets talked about too much. There are different ways to skin the cat. If you look at our team last year, the things we did were very, very different than what we did (the prior year)"
- "In my head, I want to get five, skilled unselfish guys on the court. In my head, I want to get guys that can play multiple positions. I HATE the concept of, "I'm a one, you're two, you're a three, a four, a five." I don't coach like that."
- "I bet you (Turgeon's) beat writer has never said, 'can I come sit down and talk about the Maryland offense. I bet (Villanova coach) Jay Wright's beat writer has never done that. But because there is this word, 'The Princeton Offense,' people want to come dissect and break it down and understand. We're just playing basketball. It's not rocket science.
- "The one thing that we do do that I think is different than a lot of people is that everything we do is based on reads. From day one, our guys are taught to read the game. How are you being played, how is your teammate being played and make a decision based off of that."
- "That is one of the reasons why our guys, whose names you see on trophies around this room, have had success in the pros because once they get to the league, with the 24-second clock, they're used to making decisions. You come into the league, it's not like they're running structured (plays) -- Do (NBA teams) run plays, yes. Is there structure, yes, but they have to make more reads and more decisions in the NBA, quicker, faster than we do in college and our guys are used to doing it because of how we do things."
- "I have heard from countless people that make decisions and pay checks in that league that your guys are prepared when they get here. They understand. That goes above and beyond the work ethic, the skill. They understand how to succeed in this league. We've had several high draft picks that are in the midst of having pretty good careers because they embraced what we did here and it's helped them tremendously at the next level."