Monday, March 12, 2007
The "Is Georgetown for real?" Essay You've All Been Waiting For
As you may know by now, I went to Georgetown, and I tend to be pretty whiny when I write about it. I guess I consider it vaguely cool that I went there during the Era of Kevin Braswell - whose greatest professional relevance is likely that he hit a game-winning shot for the Miami Heat in an exhibition game - and now, now this.By "this," I mean the roster of pundits predicting a Georgetown appearance in Atlanta this year: Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Andy Katz, Clark Kellogg, Seth Davis, and Michael Wilbon, among others. A few notes on that: Don't trust anything Kellogg says. Last year, he predicted all 4 No. 1 seeds would make Indy; none did. This year on the Selection Show, he called Chris Lofton "James Lofton" (former Bills receiver) and "Craig Lofton" at two separate points in the show.
But it's also somewhat terrifying that Phelps and Wilbon put us in the final.
Terrifying in two respects: a) If we make Atlanta, I really need to pony up the cash and travel time to get down there, an equation with enough moving parts to just about crush someone of my meager salary and intellect; and b) How does a program dormant for so long suddenly deal with these expectations? And within that second question, inherently, is this one: Are we even deserving of this?
The answer is, to an extent, yes. A fan of a program can always speak to their weaknesses far more acutely than their strengths, because those are the ulcer-causing moments in the close games, or even the parts of the blowouts that you note to yourself. For example, Georgetown doesn't guard ball reversal well. As a result, a lot of teams can get hot from deep against us; for examples, look at the 'Cuse loss on Big Monday (Arkansas is in the Dance? WTF?) and the first 10 minutes of that Notre Dame game in the Big East Semis.
UNC, with their secondary break and ability to spring a deep cast of shooters to various spots on the floor, is thus a tough match-up.
And consider: we're big, and when we go big and stay with that plan, very few teams in America can run with us. Hibbert, Green, Green, Hibbert - rinse and repeat. However, both Hibbert and Green play well within a team system, which can cause them to disappear (of their own accord) for stretches of play at a time, and Hibbert can occasionally disappear from a game not of his own idea (consider the same ND game as an example). So, in a potential second round match-up with Boston College and Jared Dudley - in a ACC arena (Lawrence Joel) mind you - could a potential disappearance by 1 of the big fellas hurt? Not sure if Winston-Salem fans, still bloodthirsty for more ACC Tournament action after that scintillating win over GT, would boo another ACC team or cheer for them simply because they're playing a Big East team. Regardless, that match-up is scary.
And if Texas Tech beats BC? A seemingly beatable team, sure - but would you necessarily want to face a team led by a dude with 28 appearances in this thing, in the same year he set a new record for all-time coaching victories and beat Texas A&M (a prohibitive "darling" for the Final Four in the eyes of many) twice?
The Sweet Sixteen - if we're there - scares me less. The most likely opponents are Washington State or Vandy, and I think we'd paste both of them. However, I have been waiting a long time to make a Tony Bennett joke, so I'll make one now. The Cougars first round game is in Sacramento; how much you wanna bet some CBS announcer says, "Tony Bennett... hoping his team doesn't leave its heart in Sacramento." Man, I'd kill to hear Dick Engberg say that.
Anyway, the point is: Georgetown is very good. Tall, balanced, surprisingly strong guard play (Wallace is a leader, and scrappy, and Sapp has matured in so many ways this year). It's not a stretch by any means to envision us in the Final Four, even when taking into account the assertion that UNC was supposed to be here this year, i.e. they were building for this year - which is what any UNC fan will tell you is the reason Mason beating them didn't mean anything last year.
We could get there, sure - and we might - but all the hype is a little unsettling. Forgive me if, for a brief - very brief - moment, I don't long for the days of Braswell and Freeman. At least then, we all expected expectations to crush us at the midway point of the season, not now, when it matters.
If you ever want to talk Georgetown, or read about Georgetown as this whole Sadie Hawkins unfolds, check me out here or e-mail me at tedbauer2003@yahoo.com.
3 Comments:
This team has the talent to go all the way. Will they do it though? I dunno.
I think I'm taking GTown to go all the way to the Final Four... so yeah, I definitely think they're for real.
Final 4
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