BigEastSportsBlog.com

Question: Do you know whether its possible to get detail on which games will be showed on SNY when it simply says “college basketball”? I’m trying to find out what the 4:30pm Saturday afternoon game is (11/14). Thanks, Jeff

Excellent question, Jeff. Especially since every time I input that schedule over on the right side, I have to go chasing this info down myself! Well, yesterday, my fabulous editor Ted built us a link to the whole season schedule. If you click right here, you’ll be taken right to it. I suggest bookmarking it. And as for that 4:30 p.m. Saturday game, it looks to be a tape delay replay of the previous night’s Centenary-Marquette tip.

There I am, suddenly 6-9, interviewing Rutgers’ Greg Echenique. Wait till you see the video footage.

As promised this morning, some hoops stories. I couldn’t possibly get them all (or even half), but here’s a decent sampling.

Morgantown, New York City, both home. Who would’ve thunk? Nova’s the preseason no. 1, there aren’t 38 star seniors, but give the Big East time. Cream always rises. (SNY.tv)

John Marinatto has a sense of humor. Or maybe Mike Tranghese does. (NJ Newsroom)

Rick Pitino was obviously the draw of the day. Sex scandals tend to do that. (NY Daily News)

Pitino talked about thoroughbreds’ blinders and he promised no more distractions. Fat chance. (Providence Journal, USA Today, AOL Fanhouse)

Maybe to deflect some of that, maybe just to be honest, Pitino figured it was as good a time as any to knock Rutgers’ facilities. (Star-Ledger)

It wasn’t so much quality of the truly good teams yesterday as it was quantity of the truly good. (Journal Inquirer)

Jay Wright thinks his team is prettier than last year’s. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Jim Calhoun’s lost 500 pounds. In two players. (Hartford Courant)

There’s a shift in Big East power. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

While the football side takes its hits, the basketball side of the league continues to be a mega-draw. ESPN announced its Big Monday schedule and over at Zagsblog, Adam’s all over it.

The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that Lexington Catholic High School senior Vee Sanford has committed to Georgetown. No official word yet from the university, but the 6′3″ shooting guard was seen visiting campus this weekend.

ESPN has Sanford ranked as the 70th shooting guard in the class of 2009, and describes him as “a skilled, long athlete that has the ability to score in a variety of ways.”

Sanford might not qualify as a highly touted recruit, but a depleted Hoyas team will be happy to have him on its bench. With the transfer of Omar Wattad and DaJuan Summers heading to the NBA, only seven players from last year’s squad will be returning next season, plus freshman Hollis Thompson, who enrolled early this January and began practicing with the team.

Georgetown may have lost a couple pieces from next year’s team in the past few weeks, but not everyone’s leaving the Hilltop. The Hoya is reporting that Big East Rookie of the Year Greg Monroe will hold off on the NBA and return to college next year.

Monroe is arguably Georgetown’s most important player and would have likely been a top 10 pick in this year’s draft, so it goes without saying that a reeling Georgetown team scored a major victory by keeping the big man around for another season. With the departure of leading scorer DaJuan Summers to the NBA, the rising sophomore should take on an even larger role in the Hoyas’ gameplan.

Even with Monroe returning, the Hoyas currently have just 8 players on their roster for next season. Unless John Thompson III can add a number of late signees, depth will once again be a major concern for Georgetown. But for a team that hasn’t had much go it’s way this year, the Hoyas will just be happy to have their star back next year.

Sophomore Omar Wattad will not be playing basketball at Georgetown next year, announced head coach John Thompson III in a press release today. The 6′5″ guard from Tennessee will transfer to a currently unknown school.

“Omar will not return to Georgetown next year,” Coach Thompson said in the statement. “We wish Omar the best in his future.”

Rumors regarding Wattad’s transfer have been circulating for weeks now, so today’s announcement does not come as much of a surprise. Wattad played sparingly this season averaging 2.6 points while playing in 25 games.

In the beginning of the year it looked like Wattad would be an integral part of the team’s rotation, getting his only start in a game against Florida International and earning Thompson’s praise as the leader of his second unit. However, as the Hoyas limped to the end of their season, it appeared Wattad fell out of favor, playing fewer minutes and racking up a number of DNPs in the season’s final games.

Looks like Georgetown junior DaJuan Summers has had a change of heart regarding his plans for next year.

A little over a month ago Summers declared his intentions to come back for his senior year, but today coach John Thompson III announced that the forward was making himself eligible for the NBA draft. According to the statement released on GUHoyas.com, Summers is in the process of hiring an agent, which means he will not be able to remove his name from the draft and return to school.

The junior out of Baltimore was the Hoyas’ leading scorer last season, averaging 13.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. Summers was placed on the preseason Wooden Award watchlist, and saw his draft stock quickly rise as the Hoyas’ season got off to a strong start. But as the Hoyas’ faltered Summers became the subject of criticism for his poor shot selection and declining offensive efficiency.

With the departure of Summers, Georgetown is left without any returning seniors on next year’s squad. Hoya fans must now wait to see if the team’s other highly regarded prospect, freshman center Greg Monroe, will follow Summers into the draft.

The way the Hoyas’ season has gone, this ending was to be expected. With three seconds left, Georgetown trailing by three, the ball ended up in the hands of Nikita Mescheriakov. He lets it go, and the three point attempt bounces off the top of the backboard. Not even close.

Georgetown kept the score close in this one, but its play demonstrated that this team was far away from making a Big East tournament run. Even a lowly team like the Red Storm could impose its game on the Hoyas, forcing Georgetown into a physical battle it couldn’t win.

St. John’s forced the Hoyas to commit 25 fouls today, its second highest total this season. The few Hoyas who were effective were the ones most plagued by foul trouble. Chris Wright (14 points) played just 24 minutes after picking up his fourth early in the second half. Freshman Greg Monroe (13 points, 8 rebounds) fouled out with 1:34 left on the clock.

With the stars on the bench, Georgetown’s reserves could not step up. St. John’s especially capitalized on the absence of Wright’s handle, using full court pressure to great effect. The Red Storm forced 15 turnovers, picking off numerous passes as the Hoyas tried in vain to get the ball over halfcourt.

This was by all means a game Georgetown should have been able to win. Despite shooting just 37.5% from the field, the Hoyas were still better than St. John’s (35.3%). They even won on the boards after being outrebounded by 21 in last week’s meeting. But this Georgetown team continued to show it just doesn’t have what it takes to win in this conference.

As Georgetown gets ready to kick off what it hopes will be a long week in New York against the Red Storm, there is a sense of deja vu. Exactly a week ago, the Hoyas were in Madison Square Garden taking on St. John’s. That was the day the Hoyas bubble officially burst, as they allowed the Red Storm to mount a 15 point comeback with less than ten minutes to play en route to a 59-56 overtime loss.

That was one of the worst games Georgetown has played this season, which is saying something considering how the Hoyas have performed lately. It would be hard to write that game off as a fluke looking at Georgetown’s other games, but there are reasons why this time may be different.

For one, sophomore guard Austin Freeman will start in this one after missing the last meeting with an injury. The Hoyas sorely missed Freeman’s scoring (11.6 ppg) and rebounding (4.3 rpg, second on the team).

And while Saturday’s 48-40 victory over DePaul may have been even uglier than the St. John’s game, junior DaJuan Summers did show signs of life, going off for 13 points in the second half to prevent an embarrassing loss to the lowly Blue Demons. If Summers can be the player he was earlier in the season, Georgetown’s tournament run will be a lot easier.

If the Hoyas take down St. John’s, they’ll advance to face Marquette on Wednesday. But as a team that hasn’t been able to string together consecutive victories in nearly two months, Georgetown should just focus on the matter at hand.

This probably isn’t how Jessie Sapp imagined his Georgetown career would end.

Sapp, the senior guard from New York City, has been an integral part of John Thompson III’s Georgetown renaissance, starting for the past three seasons as the Hoyas won back-to-back Big East titles and made it to the Final Four. He also established himself as a fan favorite, and not just for his late game heroics and big shots, as this Hoya op-ed attests.

But this year has been a disappointment for both Sapp and his team. The Hoyas have collapsed in Big East play, to the point where I’m not ready to call the outcome of today’s game against the Blue Demons (0-17 in conference) a foregone conclusion. And Sapp has seen himself replaced in the starting lineup due to poor play and rumored locker room issues.

Now Sapp and his teammates must play what is essentially a meaningless regular season game. Georgetown likely needs to win the Big East tournament to make the NCAA tournament, and by my calculation are locked into a rematch with St. John’s on Tuesday in New York after Seton Hall’s overtime victory over Cincinnati.

There won’t be many students on hand to see Sapp say goodbye to the Verizon Center, as Georgetown is on spring break. But those who are there have a good chance of seeing a Hoya victory, a rare occurence as of late. Georgetown hasn’t won at home since February 3 against Rutgers. Thankfully the Blue Demons may allow Sapp to exit the Verizon Center on a high note.