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With not even a single practice under their belts, it is readily apparent that the 2009-10 Georgetown Hoyas are the most talented group in years, and Vee Sanford the most electric freshman in memory.

Will they beat Duke this year? Who knows. Right now, their only legitimate competition can be found not in the Big East or ACC, but in a Filipino prison.

Georgetown celebrated the opening of the 2009-10 basketball season last night with the annual Midnight Madness festivities at McDonough Gymnasium…or a mass audition for FOX's "So You Think You Can Dance".

Midnight Madness has always been an ideal venue for Hoyas of all ages and abilities to break out their best moves-even Hall of Fame wide receiversget into the act-but on a night that ended with the entire crowd storming the court to boogie down at John Thompson III's suggestion, one wonders if we're taking the whole Big Dance thing a bit literally.

Blame it on the rain.

Surely everyone had to feel a bit restless…if not about missing the NCAA Tournament in 2009, then certainly about missing the sun, which hasn't been seen in the Washington, DC area in days.

I arrived at the McDonough parking lot to a damp, misty scene backlit by enormous spotlights-had I taken a wrong turn on Prospect St. and ended up in Regan MacNeil's front yard? Well it certainly wasn't Tubular Bells that the DJs were blasting throughout the tent, although despite the 90 decibels of thumping bass it seemed oddly quiet on the dance floor…almost.

While the early arriving Georgetown students formed into two lines at the front doors of the gym, a half- dozen members of the men's basketball team danced away alone in front of the turntable. On this night, though we were unaware at the time, it was an entirely appropriate warm-up activity.

Nothing could warm things up entirely outside in the end-it was 46 degrees after all-so the doors opened 15 minutes early and the dance party moved indoors.

With a gigantic projection TV playing highlights of Georgetown's December 2008 overtime victory over Memphis, the focus remained on the dancing, as everyone-students, student-athletes, even the parents of student-athletes--grooved along with the latestcharthitsof the moment.

At the height of the dance party, when the DJ spun-what else given the weather-a certain popular song by Rihanna, three open umbrellas were held high from the bleachers in McDonough, bobbing along to the beat. If the Hoyas' streak of unfortunate late-game results carries over into this season, at least we'll know where the bad luck came from.

Midnight Madness proper tipped off at 9:02pm, with the introduction of Georgetown's well-rounded, experienced starting lineup:

The GU Step Team, Groove Theory, and Jawani.

The latter group earns especially high marks for integrating Crank Dat into their routine-GU Midnight Madness works Soulja Boy like a backdoor cut-and bringing Jeff Green's mom to her feet in the rafters.

And then the lights dimmed on the dance floor-we'd saved the last dance for the men's and women's basketball teams.

One of my favorite legends passed down from Hoya fans of recent generations is the story of Allen Iverson's debut at the Kenner League, and the word-of-mouth buzz that snowballed surrounding his first handful of exhibitions at McDonough Gym. You'd get little argument that Iverson's arrival on the Hilltop generated a buzz like no other freshman since.

And I won't argue that Vee Sanford is or ever will be Allen Iverson on the basketball court. But thanks to his debut performance at McDonough, the freshman from Lexington, KY generated a buzz you'd be hard pressed to match at any Kenner League exhibition.

The dance floor lit up with life-sized projections of his photo and Georgetown basketball highlight, Vee brought down the house with a fierce Robot to the old school strains of Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force.

Surely nothing could top a skinny point guard bringing Georgetown University back to 1982 (not a bad year to shoot for, the banners in the rafters tell me)…

…until JTIII put the white glove on.

Coach Thompson is a well-documented Michael Jackson fan. During most of his previous appearances at Midnight Madness, JTIII's introductory music was one of the most obscure MJ singles. So it was no surprise when Coach walked out into the spotlight as the Jackson 5played in the background…or really, when he paused to note the passing in June of the King of Pop…

…cue "Thriller".

It's impossible to do justice to the 60 seconds of choreography that followed-you can watch it hereyourself. Where to even start? The priceless expressions of Austin Freeman and Jason Clark? The smoothest movement we've ever seen from Henry Sims? The fact that Nikita Mescheriakov is at least a second off the entire routine?

It's a perfect song, really-the banners in the rafters tell me the year Thriller was released (1984) was a pretty good year too.

Choreographed Michael Jackson tributes and the Robot are all well and good, but there's a serious observation to be made coming out of Midnight Madness.

From the parking lot tent where they danced alone to the DJ, to the big screen TV in front of which they stood excitedly kidding each other watching the Memphis game, to the way they obviously had to cut Nikita a lot of slack teaching him the Thriller dance, you could get a pretty good read on the 2009-10 Hoyas on the first official night of the season.

It's a fun group to watch. And…this is readily obvious immediately…this is a group having fun being around each other.

If only it were as easy as the layup line that the team might as well have danced their way through Friday night, such fun they were having.

We'll have to wait five or so months to figure out how this season plays out for the Hoyas. In the meantime, somebody get me a copy of whatever mixtape they're playing in the locker room.

John Hawkes (SFS '04)

Proud Member of Generation Burton