A Pair of Articles from the Post

In the midst of all the fallout from the mid-term elections, our readers may have missed this series of articles from today's Washington Post. As such, I figured that it wwas my duty to help out. Without further ado...

Third Year's the Charm
Thompson III Is Still Building at Georgetown, but Expectations Are High

By Camille Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 8, 2006; Page E01

Some college basketball coaches can approach the regular season confident their teams will be invited to the NCAA tournament. John Thompson Jr., who led Georgetown to 14 consecutive NCAA appearances from 1979 to 1992, was one of those coaches. His son, the current Georgetown coach, is not. At least not yet....

[Click here for more]


Resurgent Hoyas Again Attract Area's Top Recruits
Top Recruits Again Pick Georgetown

By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 8, 2006; Page E01

Chris Wright was a Duke basketball fan when he was younger. Like most teenagers in the Washington area, the All-Met guard from St. John's was only vaguely familiar with the glory days of Georgetown basketball; he wasn't even born when the Hoyas won the national championship in 1984.

Today, however, on the first day that high school seniors can formally accept college basketball scholarships, Wright and fellow All-Met guard Austin Freeman of DeMatha are set to sign letters-of-intent to play for Georgetown. And with top juniors Jason Clark of O'Connell and Chris Braswell of DeMatha already pledged to the Hoyas, Georgetown has four of the top recruits from the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, the region's premier basketball league....

[Click here for the rest of this article]

Great article

http://www.washingtonlife.com/issues/november-2006/georgetown-university-basketball/

AP Pre-Season Poll

Mirroring the choice of the coaches in the ESPN/USA Today poll, the AP Pre-season poll has the Hoyas listed at number 8.

However, Andy Katz argues that Georgetown is one of the teams that should be considered as a potential fourth Number 1 seed! That is definitely some big time props.

Tickets?

IBP, Diamond, any sign of the season tickets, yet?

Great article

http://www.nydailynews.com/11-05-2006/sports/story/468292p-394094c.html

Great update on LaSalle scrimmage from the Board

"A friend of mine attended today's scrimmage and Philly-MD all-star games last weekend. I was only able to talk to him for a few minutes, but this is what he told me about each event - LaSalle Scrimmage:

- the scrimmage consisted of 2 twenty minute and 1 ten minute game.
- He estimated that the Hoyas won the 1st scrimmage by 4 points, the 2nd one by 15, and the 3rd one by approx 20.
- Starting Lineup - Wallace, Sapp, Egerson, Green, Hibbert
- Hibbert dominated the first scrimmaged. He is in great shape and displayed great hands. The fed him the ball repeatedly and must have been something like 10-12 on FGs.
- Green was his usual all-around great player. Still needs to be more aggressive with his scoring.
- Egerson is in really good shape and probably was the best player on the court for the 2nd scrimmage.
- Summers was very impressive. Hit 3 3's. Staff expect hims to start sooner than later. He would push either Egerson or Sapp to the bench.
- Crawford was solid off the bench.
- Ewing added a lot of energy of the bench.
- Macklin did not play because of a bruise tailbone. The staff feels that he is already the best rebounder on the team. Also, they were raving about his passing ability - he is one of the best passing big men they have ever coached. The previous comment really took me by surprise.
- Rivers played pretty well. His biggest problem is that he plays too fast.
- No surprise here - Recruiting wise the staff is focused on the class of 2008.
- My friend was very impressed with the coaching staff. They do an excellent job teaching.

Philly-MD HS game- Chris Wright was terrific. Definite top 20 player in the country."

Must-read from the Hoya

Provides a recap of JTIII's recruiting success with great quotes from Dave Telep.

http://thehoya.com/sports/110306/sports2.cfm

Breaking News for the IBP

"With the eleventh pick in this year's draft, the Bakersfield Jam selects Brandon Bowman from Georgetown University."

Yes, you heard right. Brandon was picked up in the D-League's draft yesterday evening. I always knew that Brandon was a first-rounder.

Starting Line Up

There is a thread on the HoyaTalk boards reporting that this was the starting line up at last week's scrimmage:

C - Hibbert
PF - Green
SF - Egerson
SG - Crawford
PG - Wallace

Obviously, Egerson at small forward is quite a surprise. Who thinks that this will remain the starting line up when it's time for the actual games?

Luke Winn's Top 10 Frontcourts

SI.com's Luke Winn lists the Hoyas as the number 2 frontcourt in the country (and that's without giving any props to contributions from Ewing Jr.). He gives the number 1 spot to Florida.

Hibbert, the Hoyas' ever-improving 7-2 giant, has an ultra-athletic sidekick in Green and will welcome a McDonald's All-American in Macklin. Georgetown was Florida's toughest challenger in the NCAA tournament for a reason -- its size -- and has the big boys to make another deep run.

Hoyas pay tribute to Red

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001438.html

Hoyas at #8 in ESPN/USA Today poll

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/rankings

Gray, Hibbert and Thabeet

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/6099328

ESPN Preview up

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/insider/news/story?id=2613132&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncb%2finsider%2fnews%2fstory%3fid%3d2613132

Pre-season articles

10 Big East players to watch -- Green & Hibbs (also mentions of Summers and Ticket.)

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1161838011113720.xml&coll=1

Big East writers pick GU to win the BE.

http://www.syracuse.com/sports/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1161767105169020.xml&coll=1

Hoyas prepare for the big time.

http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20061025-113835-1732r.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102500532.html

BTW: The IPB and I attended an open practice and got to see the team in person. I believe he is going to post his comments.

Big East Preseason Predictions

The Big East coaches have tapped Pitt as their choice to win the regular season title. Georgetown, however, was voted a close second. Pitt received 219 total points, including 10 first-place votes. The Hoyas received 212 points and 4 first-place votes. Syracuse came in third and Marquette trailed the Orange by one vote. Click HERE for the complete article.

Additionally, Green and Hibbert were unanimous selections to the Preseason All-Big East team.

Top 3 shooting guards

Interesting analysis of top 3 shooting guards in the senior class -- obviously, this includes Austin Freeman.

http://www.rivals.com/content.asp?cid=589580

Money quotes:

"Freeman is as good as most at shooting off the catch from 3-point range. Where he separates himself is with his ability to hit tough shots in the mid-range and short-range area. With deft body control and a soft touch, Freeman can drive hard to the basket and score while avoiding the charge. "

"Expect Freeman to immediately mesh with the Princeton-style offense that Georgetown employs. He has a high basketball IQ, knows how to move without the ball and is an efficient scorer. Like Bayless, he will likely be the No. 1 perimeter scoring option. As his conditioning improves, so should his defense. "

Barker sums it all up.

http://washingtontimes.com/blogs/storyview.php?StoryID=20061020-114105-8951r&TopicsID=discourse

More Hoya happenings

Josh Thornton has left the program for "personal reasons." This explains why the seeming scholarship crunch was not one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901642.html

The Examiner reports on the Clark commit.

http://www.examiner.com/a-353438~Clark_commits_to_Hoyas.html

Interview w/ Clark. He sounds like a great kid.

http://www.dcmetrohoops.net/jasonclarkinter.htm

Since We All Missed It

I don’t think that we can truly excited about the upcoming season without having experienced Midnights Madness. So, here’s a few video posts from last week’s kick-off to the 2006-2007 campaign.

Midnight Madness!

Hoyas Dunking

Pat Senior

I also found this. It's not from Midnight Madness, but it's denifinitely worth watching. It's a compilation of Pat Jr. dunks. It's very impressive (unlike the clips that Diamond posts of our new recruits).

All these clips comes from YouTube. I’m sure that everyone, other than the IPB, is familiar with that little corner of the internet.