Relections on the regular season: The Time of Our Lives
Generation Othella:
Wow! What a magical year thus far, knock on wood. And I realize it's not yet over: We may still be treated to "DaJuan Shining Moment". And so many great memories from the regular season.
Crushing a good Vandy team on ESPN, avenging last year's loss. That was one of the NCAA-leading 13 games we've played against RPI Top-50 teams.
Seeing a young team grow after early setbacks to ODU and Duke and Oregon.
11 wins in a row- wow. Great stuff. Marquette, WVU, and Pitt were among the cannon fodder the Hoyas made of the Big East this year.
Appreciating the heck out of our two POY candidates, Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green. Guys, know that your contributions are WELL appreciated! Keep the party going by beating Yukon tomorrow!
Even seeing Orange fans rushing the court after beating us to keep their meager NCAA hopes alive on Big Monday this week. Teams rushing the court after beating us reflects the juxtaposition of the GU and Syracuse programs over the last 3 years, doesn't it?
But my favorite had to be the 100th Anniversary Gala. An incredible night. All of it really: from our HoyaTalk table in the rear, to Patrick Ewing's speech, to JT2's emotional speech. Shooting the breeze, reminiscing with the entire Chvotkin family. They didn't know it at the time, but I was thrilled just to be sharing a Hoya conversation with "Radio Rich" and his fine family. The Athletic Department and Hoyas Unlimited staff did such a fine job with that event, I don't know that it will ever be equaled. But I know that I will not crack open my commemorative wine bottle or Coke bottle- those are going in the trophy case!
Steve Thomas, F'97, G'01
Generation Laughna:
From November 1962 until December 1963, the BBC broadcast That Was the Week That Was (TW3), a groundbreaking, weekly, live, late-night satire television show. TW3 poked fun at the then-current domestic and foreign affairs of Great Britain with an emphasis on people in power and their behavior. During the past week (and continuing through tomorrow's UConn game), I have experienced my own version of TW3 and would like to share it, albeit in the form of words and not musical lyrics as TW3 most surely would have done.
Beginning with last Saturday's game against Pitt, the Hoyas have hooked up against a leading rival of the past 6-7 years, the Pitt Panthers, their all-time rival, the hated Orange, and then tomorrow will face their rival since the late 1980s through the 1990s, the UConn Huskies. The Pitt game last Saturday, as everyone knows, was the battle for first place in the Big East Conference. Our Hoyas ultimately prevailed, although it appeared at times that neither team especially wanted to win the game!
To me, the game felt like a Big East heavyweight slugfest from the 80s with both teams banging back and forth at one another. Then, with the game on the line, one player, Jeff Green, put Georgetown on his back and willed the Hoyas to victory. I have not seen a Georgetown player do this in quite a while and certainly not in the quietly dramatic way that Green consistently performs his craft. As I watch Jeff's game, I find myself repeating, "Can you say lottery pick?" (After the 2007-08 season, of course.) Finally, after the zebras whistled Jeff out with his fifth foul, his class and running mate Jon "Money" Wallace made sure that Jeff's heroic efforts were not in vain by calmly canning two free throws. Everyone contributes on this team, but, for me, Jeff and Jon are the keys.
Flushed with Saturday's home success, I ventured North on Monday for my first trip to the Carrier Dome to see a Georgetown - Syracuse game. At the risk of evoking Mrs. Lincoln jokes, other than the game's outcome, the trip was very enjoyable. The Dome is an intriguing place to see a basketball game to say the least. If I thought that the Garden was bad when the Orange Sea hits high tide when Syracuse plays in the Big East Tournament, then the Dome is like a perpetual Orange Tsunami, especially behind the Syracuse basket. This was Senior Night at SU and I hate to play someone else at their place on Senior Night! The festivities seemed to last forever and Syracuse appeared to honor more than a dozen senior players, (What is up with that?) together with the customary kudos for the senior cheerleaders, dancers, band members, etc. I took my customary half-time stroll around the Dome to see the exhibits of Syracuse's all-time greats, including football and lacrosse great Jim Brown, one of the three greatest male athletes of the 20th Century along with Muhammed Ali and Jim Thorpe, and the late-great Ernie Davis, basketball great and D.C.'s own Dave Bing and, of course, the myriad of Powell brothers who played lacrosse (and tormented our Hoyas) for the Orange. Forgetting that the basketball court and seating area comprise only about one-half the area of the Dome, I was not able to circumnavigate the Dome in the allotted halftime period and returned to my seat with about 17:00 minutes left in the second half. Despite all the roaring I had heard during my walk, the `Cuse was only up by 4 when I sat down. In a scene of "déjà vu all over again," as Yogi would say, Syracuse stretched and cemented its lead when another Syracuse sharpshooter named Rautins nailed consecutive three pointers to go along with some earlier treys and the victory was secured for the Orange. Like the early 1980s, when his father, Canadian sharpshooter Leo Rautins ("the best high school player ever in the history of Canada" according to the 1982-83 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook), drained outrageously long jump shots for the Orange against us and played, surprisingly for Syracuse, smart basketball, Andy Rautins, only a sophomore, followed his weekend three-point shooting display against Providence with another against the Hoyas. But the most intriguing, if not bizarre, Orange player that evening was starting sophomore guard Eric Devendorf. Even the Syracuse fans who were sitting close to me referred to him as "Eminem" during the course of quiet basketball-related conversation. Bedecked with tattoos taken straight from the latest Goth magazine, Devendorf constantly incited the crowd following even the most mundane of basketball plays. He also "distinguished" himself by hogging the ball and seemingly refusing to pass the ball to players like Rautins and especially Demetrius Nichols, who had a much greater likelihood of getting points for the Orange than he. It was a bizarre performance to say the least. (Perhaps a consult with lichoya68 is in order!!) Oh well, you can't win them all, and I have now been to the Carrier Dome!! Besides, as the Syracuse fan next to me said after the game in a quote reminiscent of Churchill, "That's okay, you'll go home and tomorrow you will still be Georgetown!"
Tomorrow's game against UConn is our Senior Day (see above for my thoughts on these events) and I want to thank and wish all the best to Seniors Sead Dizdarevic and Kenny Izzo for their careers at Georgetown. For four years, they have persevered making their primary on the floor contributions during practice sessions and then, responding to the clarion fan call of "Sead" and "Izzo" finishing up decided games for the starters and first line subs. But remember, come May, they too will have Georgetown degrees and a lifetime of opportunities as members of the Georgetown family.
In closing, I also have to acknowledge the extraordinary special contributions of Kurt Muhlbauer, SFS '07, in support of Georgetown Men's Basketball program during the past four years. Kurt, a driving force in Hoya Blue since his sophomore year, helped to galvanize and energize that organization with his perpetually burning flame of Hoya Blue passion. In my experience, he is the most outstanding member of Hoya Blue since Scott Minto, SFS '02, Hoya Blue's founding father! His "Kurt-shirts" are now the stuff of legends. And Hoya Blue, the Hoya Hoop Club and the Men's Basketball Program are better off as a result of his efforts. Well done, Kurt!!
So, in the words of David Frost, as he signed off the final broadcast of TW3, "That was That Was the Week That Was . . . that was."
Beat UConn! WE ARE GEORGETOWN!
Michael Karam, SFS '72, Law `76
Generation Burton:
The most significant addition to my Hoya fan arsenal this season--other than the lucky neckties of course--has been the digital video recorder I acquired after moving to Crystal City this past summer (technologically, I've officially joined Generation Burton). An indispensable tool for the game recapper with poor handwriting and mediocre note-taking skills (you try standing still long enough to write descriptions of plays when your team is fighting for first place in the Big East), my DVR has also become destination viewing whenever I need my quick fix of Hoya highlights.
There have been many highlights indeed this season--Jessie Sapp's no-look alley oop to Jeff Green against Notre Dame, the 30-1 run that buried Winston-Salem State at McDonough Arena, and Jon Wallace's steal and layup last weekend to secure the Hoyas' win over Pitt and passage into first place in the Big East. But they're all eclipsed by a single moment that made me prouder to be a Georgetown fan than I have in seven years, that I never would have noticed if not for my trusty DVR.
Section 219A, Row 13 at the Wachovia Center is not for the acrophobic or far-sighted. Roughly half the photos I took from my lofty perch at the Georgetown-Villanova game in Philadelphia were lost to blurriness or inability to tell Jessie Sapp from a dust spot on the camera lens. I found the easiest egress from my seat was to simply turn around and climb up two rows to the top of the arena.
But tension travels upward, and when the Hoyas gutted their way back from a double digit first half deficit and took a one-point lead on Jeff Green's pull-up jumper with 20 seconds remaining, an afternoon's worth of pent up energy was spontaneously released from the hundreds of Hoya fans high-up in the stands. At the Verizon Center the Georgetown student section is referred to as a "sea of gray"; on this day the 200 Hoya Blue members in attendance might well have been called a "spot of gray"--two WAG shirt-clad enclaves in Sections 219A and 205. But seconds later, those spots made as big a splash as any sea of gray could have ever hoped in unfriendly territory.
Jeff Green now lay on the court, having been elbowed while securing the ball with just under four seconds to go. In that moment, the air came out of the 20,000 strong Wachovia Center partisans, and the cavernous arena was suddenly deathly silent...except for a faint cheer growing ever-louder on the television broadcast, ringing down from on high:
"WE ARE...GEORGETOWN!"
The Hoyas have taken down their fair share of opponents this season--the 58-55 win over Villanova was the ninth consecutive Big East victory for Georgetown. But for me none of these victories and none of the many other DVR-worthy highlights from the 2006-2007 season has surpassed the moment when a few spots of gray in the upper deck took down an entire arena of hostile fans.
John Hawkes (F'04)
Generation Hibbert:
I met Jeff Green's mom. I was at the upper bar at Clyde's after the Pitt game with a throng of elated Hoya Fans, two or three sulking Pitt fans, and one very confused looking fan in Maryland gear when a group of teal-clad Hoya fans walked into the bar. A number of the fans there at the time started chanting "Jeff Greens mom". She waived and gave some of us hugs. I got one. I told her "Thank you". I don't think that "Thank you" properly conveyed what I wanted to say. I wanted to say thank you to the players and coaches who have lead us on the long run of Big East wins this year and made us very proud to be Hoyas.
Steve Medlock (F'06)
