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Hoyas report: Getting inside

July 9, 2008
The Sports Xchange

Getting inside · Notes, quotes · Strategy and personnel

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Even as Georgetown finished first in the regular season of the brutally tough Big East, there was a sense that there was something missing from the Hoyas. The team had all the ingredients for a second consecutive Final Four run, but it seemed to play up or down to the level of competition, relying on late-game heroics to win a series of narrow victories rather than taking charge and ending the suspense.

For much of the 2007-2008 season, that worked. The veteran team led by seniors Jonathan Wallace and Roy Hibbert were calm when the situation was tense, and made the plays that were needed to win. But the late-game heroics deserted the team against Davidson in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and the Hoyas blew a 17-point lead, suffering a shocking, 74-70 defeat at the hands of the 10th-seeded Wildcats.

It was a crushing end to a season in which so much was expected. Combined with a loss to Pittsburgh in the Big East Tournament championship game, the Hoyas failed to meet their own expectations in March.

Now, the program says goodbye to the core group of veterans who arrived along with John Thompson III and embraced his coaching philosophies, helping to lead the team places it hadn't seen since Thompson's father was in his coaching prime. Roy Hibbert heads to the NBA, but also gone are four-year starter Jonathan Wallace and Big East sixth man of the year, Patrick Ewing Jr.

Thompson is a great recruiter, however, and the talent level will again be high in 2008-2009. Jessie Sapp seems as though he's been around for a decade manning the point; he'll be a senior next year, and along with Austin Freeman and Chris Wright, will form a quick and dangerous backcourt. DaJuan Summers will anchor the paint.

Georgetown will be a contender for the Big East title again in 2008-2009, but the bitter taste from this March will linger for a long time. For the first time in Thompson III's four-year tenure, he has a team that did not meet expectations, and that will hurt for quite awhile.