The initial draw features the Hoyas against nearby Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) in a first-round game to be played in Raleigh, NC. For all the past palaver about interest in seeing Georgetown play the University of Maryland (the one in College Park -- sometimes referred to by tongue-in-cheekers as UMCP), isn't it a quirky twist that Georgetown -- actually the first college established in the state of Maryland -- finds itself NCAA-ed up with Maryland's sister school as the Terps head to the NIT.

There are other scheduling ironies going on this coming weekend. Remember the Duke lacrosse episode two seasons ago? Two years ago this weekend, the Hoyas were dressed and in their locker room on the Duke campus when they were informed that the game had been cancelled, with the Blue Devils's season soon to follow. The home-and-home series was continued last season at Georgetown. To make up for the cancelled game however, the number one-ranked Blue Devils agreed to return to Georgetown again this year. If events had transpired differently, Georgetown fans might be watching the Hoyas play two NCAA hoop games sandwiched around a top-ten lacrosse match-up all in a three-day span in the Raleigh-Durham area. Not to be though. Instead, Duke fans can travel to DC this Saturday for the lacrosse match-up at 11 am followed by the likely basketball match-up of the Blue Devils and the West Virginia / Arizona winner at the Verizon Center. There must be a parallel universe inter-acting somehow with our reality.

I, for one, am encouraged by the play of the Hoyas in Madison Square Garden last week: two great wins followed by an offsetting performance on the third day in the championship game. However, from here on out in the NCAA tourney, there will only be two games each weekend.

Unless that parallel universe interferes, that should suit the Hoyas just fine.