Role players will be key for Georgetown
Georgetown’s men’s basketball team is ready to start a brand new season. But before the Hoyas get down to business with their Midnight Madness celebration this Friday night — and first true practice the following morning — they spent an afternoon answering some lingering questions about last year’s team.
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That’s not a good thing. Georgetown was 12-3 on Jan. 16 with a win under its belt at then-No. 2 Connecticut. But it lost 10 of the final 14 games, including in the first round of the Big East tournament and the first round of the NIT. Three of those losses came in overtime and another four were by six points or less. It was the first time the Hoyas had missed the NCAA Tournament since 2005.
“We have a foundation set up so that you can go through a year like last year and the sky is not falling in,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said at the team’s annual Media Day. “That being said, this group was affected by last year. We all were. Hopefully, we’ve learned the lessons and hopefully the steps that were taken last year will put us in a position for this year’s group not to have the same ending.”
The Hoyas return no seniors. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t experienced. Guards Chris Wright and Jason Clark, forward Austin Freeman and center Greg Monroe — a preseason Wooden Award nominee — were four of the top six in both points and minutes played last season. Georgetown enters the year ranked No. 18 in the country by ESPN.
The key will be a supporting cast led by junior swingman Nikita Mescheriakov, forwards Julian Vaughn and Henry Sims and freshman forward Hollis Thompson, who got a head start on the competition by enrolling at Georgetown last winter and practicing with the Hoyas for a semester.
“We’re going to need them all right away,” Freeman said. “All the games that we play even before the Big East season starts we’re going to need anyway. They’re going to have to learn fast.”
