March 14, 2008
It's a brief bleary blog Hoya fans this Friday afternoon following yet another "lucky" Hoya win yesterday over the Wildcats of Villanova by the count of 82-63. Of course, as we all now by now, our BIG EAST Regulars Season Champions, with overall and conference records of 26-4 and 15-3, respectively, can win only by luck. After all, we have no Conference Player of the Year or BIG EAST Coach of the Year this year. Those honors went to the second coming of Troy Murphy (Luke Harangody) and, for the second year in a row, Coach Mike Brey, a GW grad, both of whom are associated with the University of Notre Dame. And since individual awards are so critical to winning team titles, Notre Dame now is on course to sweep through the BIG EAST Tournament. Oh wait, they got spanked last night by Marquette by the count of 89-79 as "Troy" Harangody fouled out and was, except for one brief second-half spurt, completely ineffective! But I digress, so back to the Hoyas!
Of course, there was no way we could beat Villanova other than by luck yesterday since they have their genius, Beau Brummell coach Jay Wright who cast a spell over the officiating crew before the game and still had the moxie to complain long and hard about any call or no-call that did not go his way. We also had to be lucky to win since our big man, Roy Hibbert, came up scoring goose eggs and being fouled out by the Wright trance-induced officiating crew. And we, of course, were lucky as our defending BIG EAST Tournament Champions, led by our two-year starting back court of Jon "Money" Wallace and Jesse "New York City" Sapp lit up the Wildcats and the Garden for 20 and 23 points and 5 and 6 three-pointers, respectively. Yet, despite the obvious luck involved, I had the strangest feeling as I watched that I had seen this movie at least once before over the past two seasons.
One new lucky wrinkle did make its way into Thursday's victory as freshman guard Chris Wright returned from a bad ankle injury that had kept him out of the rotation for the past six or seven weeks. He must have been lucky to have come off the bench at key points during this BIG EAST tournament game as a freshman and to have played as we had thought he would have played during the entire season if he had not been injured. He showed the "drive and dish" moves and long-range shooting ability that have had Hoya fans salivating since he came out of St. John's College High School in DC last season. For a moment, I thought some part of Chris's return might have been due to Coach Thompson's shrewd player management and waiting until his player was ready to play again. But then I remembered that the return had to be lucky, since Coach Thompson, once again, is not BIG EAST Coach of the year, so he could not possibly have come up with such a shrewd stratagem. And we, of course, are lucky, because now, as we face the remaining games in the BIG EAST Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, we have another weapon to employ from a time-management and player resource perspective. Sometimes, luck is what you make it!!
Oh well, so much for luck. Now we face the remainder of the BIG EAST tournament against the other top-ranked teams who also achieved first round byes for the tourney. But wait. Somehow, someway, perhaps it was our own perverse luck projecting outward toward our rivals, the other top-ranked teams (Louisville, Notre Dame, and Connecticut) all lost yesterday and the games were not as close as some of the scores might indicate. Thus, once again I suppose, our lucky Hoyas will have a cakewalk through the rest of the tournament and to defend our BIG EAST Tournament title.
But then again, I have seen West Virginia, Marquette and Pitt play this season, most recently during the past few days. Thus, I don't think that our much proclaimed luck will be enough to carry the day. Speaking only of West Virginia, tonight's opponent (and thus the only one I currently care about), I have seen the Mountaineers's Joe Alexander, perhaps the hottest player in the country right now, shoot "lights out" the past two days and average 30 points per game over the last five games, including 34 points yesterday against UConn. For some reason, although luck has plainly been at the core of our success this season, I have a gut feeling that our Coach Thompson and his charges will "figure out" a way to meet the challenges posed by the Mountaineers. And luck may, indeed, play a part, since "luck is the residue of design!"
GO HOYAS!!
WE ARE GEORGETOWN!!
Respectfully submitted,
Michael E. Karam, F '72, L '76, L `81
Proud Member of Generation Laughna
