NBA All-Star center Roy Hibbert led the Pacers to a playoff victory over the Orlando Magic last night, but for Georgetown fans his series of tweets with former Hoya Henry Sims said it all:
Hoya Saxa.
The mind-meld that is the Big East coaches struck a blow against smart, unselfish, and very, very good basketball on both sides of the court on Sunday morning when it was announced that freshman Otto Porter was left off the All-Rookie team. The coaches managed to pick seven players for the All-Rookie Team, yet somehow Porter, a critical cog on the 12th ranked team in the nation, was left off. This couldn't have been more poorly executed if the coaches deferred the entire responsibility for the selections to Big East commissioner John Marinatto.
Porter's per game numbers aren't gaudy -- assuming you overlook the biggest national TV Big East road games Georgetown played all year: 14 points and 14 rebounds at Louisville, 14 points and 13 rebounds at Syracuse, 19 points and 5 rebounds at Marquette (a game which took place after ballots were due). And perhaps some coaches were deterred by the fact that he was a 6th man (ignoring the pesky facts that he was always on the court at the end of the game, was playing more minutes than any reserve on an elite team, and had the third most minutes of any player on Georgetown's team). As Luke Winn ably described him earlier in 2012:
Taking into account Porter's defensive contributions -- he's the team's best defensive rebounder, and second in both steal and block percentage -- he needs to be considered one of the nation's top 10-15 freshmen.
More singing praise for Otto and blasting the undeserving after The Jump:
Former John Thompson Jr. player "Bashful" weights in on criticism of John Thompson III and his system.
There has been much consternation about the recent two losses by the Hoyas and after the Cincinnati game some criticism of Coach JTIII emerged on this and other blogs. After my good friend Sleepy Hoya has penned a somewhat facetious article this week, I thought the discussion deserved a more detailed look. The focus of the dyspepsia revolves around the "Georgetown/ Princeton" offense and its effectiveness in the Big East (strategic concerns) and, of course, the tactical considerations of substituting, play calling after time outs and other coaching decisions.
In a series of articles this week, Sports Illustrated has cited Hoyas junior Hollis Thompson and senior Henry Sims as breakout players and keys to Georgetown's early season success.
Here are the links to the Hollis and Sims posts, and I particularly enjoy this nugget from Luke Winn on Sims:
As a senior, he's more assertive in the post, is a threat to dribble-drive on opposing centers from the top of the key, and his playmaking skills from the elbow position in the Hoyas' hybrid-Princeton offense have vastly improved. Sims' has a team-high (by far) assist rate of 33.0 percent, and he's the only player over 6-4 in the top 75 of the national assist rate standings. He has, thus far, been the best playmaking big man in the country -- a development that not even Thompson could see coming. "I don't want to talk about it too much," he said, "because I don't want to jinx anything."
Best playmaking big man in the country? Combine that with our earlier post today that exclaimed a Sweet Sixteen appearance now a "pretty standard expectation", and I'd suggest the Delusion Train has officially left the station.
The great Ted Leonsis, proud Georgetown graduate and owner of the Verizon Center, has responded to our demand for more salt at Hoyas games in a groundbreaking request relayed in this week's Casual Awards.
Regular readers of THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON would have noted over the weekend our failure in getting some delicious salt for our Greene Turtle fries. Yes, we gave props to Leonsis for even giving us the opportunity to drink Stella and eat pulled pork sliders thanks to the Greene Turtle. But no salt? WE DEMANDED ACTION.
Leonsis responds after The Jump:
Jeff Green's athletic accomplishments at Georgetown have been fairly well documented. He came to the school as an unheralded recruit, only joining Georgetown after Gary Williams wouldn't let him come to Maryland. He left three years later as the most accomplished player of John Thompson III's tenure on the Hilltop. He won the Big East Player of the Year, led Georgetown to the Final Four, and was the #5 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.
JTIII's hybrid "Princetown" offense never looked prettier than when #32 was running the point forward. Thinking back on those 2004-2007 Georgetown teams with Green manning the top of the key, Jonathan Wallace swishing threes from the corner, Patrick Ewing Jr. throwing down dunks, and Roy Hibbert's drop stepping his way to layups brings a tear to my eye. Those teams brought Georgetown back to national prominence and set the stage for the program's ascent to a perennial top 20 team.
More about Jeff Green after The Jump.
Roy Hibbert sure is the media king of Indiana. First, he read you a poem over the phone. Now, he is making a special guest appearance on the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation, tonight at 8:30 EST. As always, feel free to stop by to live blog the historic event.
44 days until the season opener.
Kyle Anderson, Schmyle Blandeman, it's Friday and it's time to relax! Kick back and enjoy this piece from the awesome site Rumors on the Internets about former Georgetown Hoya and NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo and what exactly went down when he uttered that legendary question asking the masses who wants to have sex with him.
Time and retelling have shaped this tale in strange ways, but the basics are always the same - Dikembe Mutombo, towering over the crowd, demands to know who will sex him. Today, however, the prevailing version of this story has been meaningfully altered from the version I first heard over a decade ago.
Awesome.
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