No. 12 Georgetown’s 61-53 defeat of No. 10 Pittsburgh yesterday moved the Hoyas into first place in the Big East and on the brink of their first regular season conference title in a decade. The revival of the once proud program that launched the careers of Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and Allan Iverson amongst others is unquestionably one of the bigger stories of this college basketball season. Dwill of Sports On My Mind, however, contends “the NCAA™s biggest nightmare is a successful Georgetown Hoyas basketball team.”
How can Georgetown a Jesuit Catholic school with a white student body rivaling those of Marquette and Notre Dame field and all-black team, save for the inter-racial guard Jeremiah Rivers, son of Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers?
Ahhh, it™s the coaches. John Thompson III is black – and the son of legendary Hoya head coach John Thompson. But JTIII came to Georgetown from Princeton where he fielded a predominantly white team, so what™s the deal at G-town?
The answer white people come up with which is often parroted by black people is Thompson III is surrounding himself with players with whom he is comfortable. Oh wait, that™s the answer these people come up with to excuse the whiteness surrounding their own white leaders; not true for black people. For schools like Marquette and Notre Dame and other schools like them, the excuse is high academic standards. Blacks just don™t have the SAT scores to enter schools with such high academic standards like Notre Dame, Marquette, Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, etc. They don™t have the ability to match the standards people like Irish alum Paul Hornung say should be lowered to allow black athletes in colleges and universities like Notre Dame.
The apologists for these schools, and they are legion, shrug and say, œIt™s unfortunate, but that™s the way it is. And for JTII and his father before him it is some sort of Underground Railroad and a secret test-lowering standard alliance with the Georgetown academic department that allows the Hoyas to put an all-black team on the court and the bench.
That™s the real reason Georgetown™s recent 11-game winning streak has barely caused a blip – if you discount the local Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area – on the national and Internet sports radar. And if you don™t think it is the reason, it certainly is the reason no one wants to hear or read. It™s the reason the Hoyas entered the week at only #12 in the country a scant one spot ahead of Air Force. To think of the national fervor such a streak would cause if it was happening on Tobacco Road and on the pristine floor of Coach K Court. We™re talkin™ about Air Force! Not North Carolina, not UCLA – Air Force!
Today there are no writings implying academic improprieties at Georgetown, no cries of thuggish, sullen athletes playing defense as if they were committing assault. Today there is no talk of the JTIII-led renaissance of the Hoyas™ program from its ebb time during the Craig Esherick, post œBig John era. And there is certainly little talk of how good a college coach JTIII is, no consideration for national coach of the year – or, for that matter, Big East coach of the year.
Kenny Izzo and Sead Dizdarevic are black? News to me. And them.
True -almost. Both players are seniors and are not JTIII-recruited Hoyas (he’s been at G-town three years); they’re Esherick holdovers. They are the only two seniors on Georgetown’s team and neither has played more than three minutes in any game this season….
And GC, Saturday was the first time since the beginning of the season that the Hoyas have been featured anywhere, especially on ESPN.com. Before today the Hoyas had the quietest 11-game winning streak of any big-time school in the country.
D-Will,
First, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I used to host a weekly coach’s show with Coach Thompson while he was head coach at Princeton, and still cover Georgetown games when they’re in my area.
With that out of the way, I think you might be on to something.
In my mind though some weight has to be given to the fact that national sports attention is so lazily poll-based. While Georgetown’s winning streak was clear to those following the program and who pay close attention to college basketball, the fact that the Hoyas didn’t return to either of the human Top 25 polls until recently left them under the radar. Georgetown was ranked #8 in the country before the start of the season in one of these polls but fell off the radar after starting 4-3. The only national articles you saw then were “what happened to Georgetown?” pieces, with the coaching staff well aware that their ranking was far too high for the team they had and the steps they needed to take early in the schedule.
Air Force had such a strong start to their season (17-1) that more national writers writers paid notice during this same period of time.
I’ve seen national articles starting to pick up on Georgetown since the Marquette game. My Google News alerts have been running overtime.
Jon
Jon-
I totally agree with you and am happy to read that you repped the Hoyas like you did…. My NCAA hoops-specific Goog’s Alerts are tuned to FOX, CBS, and a legion of NCAA bloggers and the Hoyas weren’t widely mentioned until yesterday – and ESPN.com appeared to take a special non-interest in them.
One school and coach I forgot to mention was UConn and Calhoun. when the Huskies go on a tear like the Hoyas in conference play – well, after sixe or seven in a row, the national press would have been all over them; features everywhere!
For a team that was picked so high in the preseason polls and, as you said was 4-3 early in the season, they are grossly underreported. To now be at 22-5, which means they’ve really been on a 20-game tear(!), and not be widely discussed, to go a Memphis in Conference USA-like tear but in the Big East is phenomenal!
D-Wil,
Your post was certainly on my mind driving back from Boston this evening. An ESPN Radio dude was talking about BCS conference men’s bsketball teams playing well heading into conference tournaments. No mention of the Hoyas.
Jon
Overt racism in the nation’s capital is a sad state of affairs and refelctive of the liberal media that constitutes the majority of the press in our country. I think JTIII is an excellent coach but has succombed to his father’s legacy of black- only recruiting, which in turn cause people to overlook his abilities. Those who deny the racist policies are just that – in denial.
ever consider that white players don’t come to GU not because they are not recruited, have you considered that the Black Team label is a recruiting tool used by other coaches to lure possible white recruits from attending GU, finally, the assertion that the academic standards are lowered for GU and not schools like Duke, Notre Dame etc must be basketball specific, because these schools certainly have large numbers of Black players on their football teams.
Jayce- So in ALL the years that the Thompsons have been coaching, not a SINGLE white player has wanted to play at a national, high-profile, media-friendly team like Georgetown? That is not only false, it is scary to think that anyone could believe that. I agree that there are lower academic standards at other schools as well, but no one can convince anyone that G-Town doesnt practice overt racism. Not a single white players EVER played on a Thompson team- please.