The
Georgetown University Basketball Team (which, like all sports teams at Georgetown University, is named the Georgetown Hoyas) is a well-known basketball program in the NCAA Big East. Georgetown's first intercollegiate men's basketball team was formed in 1907. John Thompson III, son of the accomplished Hoyas coach John Thompson, is the current head coach. The Hoyas historically have been well regarded not only for their team success, but also for their ability to generate players that after graduation succeed both on the court (such as Patrick Ewing) and off (such as Henry Hyde).
The team has reached the NCAA Tournament Final Four 5 times, winning the National Championship in 1984. It has also won the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament 7 times, and has won the Big East regular season title 4 times. Its most recent trip to the Final Four was in 2007, where they lost to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the semi-final round.
The 2008-09 Hoyas will have many new faces on their roster following the graduation and subsequent move to professional basketball of Roy Hibbert, Jonathan Wallace, Patrick Ewing, Jr. and Tyler Crawford. Two contributors on the 2007-08 team, Jeremiah Rivers and Vernon Macklin, also transferred to Indiana and Florida respectively. Due to the the youth of the team and an especially competitive year for the Big East Conference, the Hoyas were voted to finish 7th in the league in the Big East Coaches preseason poll.
The team will count on preseason John R. Wooden Award nominee DaJuan Summers to take a more central role in 08-09. Other significant returnees include senior Jessie Sapp and former McDonald's All-American Team members Austin Freeman and Chris Wright. New to the team will be Florida State transfer Julian Vaughn and a talented group of freshman. The most decorated of the incoming freshman is power forward/center Greg Monroe, who was the Morgan Wooten Award winner for High School Player of the Year and was a McDonald's All-American Team member. Joining him will be Parade All-American Center Henry Sims, and 2008 Washington D.C. High School Player of the Year Jason Clark.
The Hoyas currently employ their own variant of the Princeton offense, a slow, cerebral style of play that is very rare in the modern college game. The hallmark of the offense is the "backdoor" pass, where a player on the wing suddenly moves in towards the basket, receives a bounce pass from a guard on the perimeter, and (if done correctly) finds himself with no defenders between him and a layup. Coach Thompson learned the style while serving under then-Coach Pete Carril of the Princeton University Tigers. Georgetown has been lauded in the sports media for destroying the "warped stereotype" that "African American kids don't want discipline" as well as for proving that the typically brawny Georgetown team can excel by emphasizing offensive efficiency rather than defense (not that the defense is any less efficient).
The men's basketball team is the most successful and well-known sports program at the university. They won the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1984 (over the University of Houston) under coach John Thompson, Jr. The Hoyas also reached and lost the Championship game in 1943 (to Wyoming), 1982 (to Michael Jordan's North Carolina), and 1985 (to Big East rival Villanova). The Hoyas also recently made it to the Final Four in 2007.
The team has been very successful in the Big East: it won or tied for the regular-season titles in 1980, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1992, 2007, and 2008. The team was even more dominant in the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament: it won in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, and 2007.
Team Website: http://guhoyas.cstv.com
School Website: http://www.georgetown.edu
