Nov. 27, 2009

THE WAITING

"The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you get one more yard

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part." --Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Tomorrow afternoon, the Georgetown Hoyas will take on the Lafayette Leopards in a referendum on GU's progress thus far in rebuilding from last year's NIT appearance.

OR

Georgetown will face Lafayette at noon in a game that provides a valuable data point among many in determining the strengths and weaknesses of the Hoyas as they prepare for the heart of Big East play.

OR

One of the above scenarios is probably more accurate than the rest. I have my theories on which one it is. You probably do too.

Indeed, I gather a fair majority of Hoya fans have a strongly held opinion on the utility of extrapolating larger truths from smaller samples of Georgetown basketball games. This fact alone has made the popular Hoyatalk basketball message board both an eminently entertaining and insanely frustrating read over the first two weeks of the season.

I love a good basketball argument, and it's a good time to be a connoisseur in Hoyaland. After Georgetown's 46-45 victory over Temple last week, most of the talk wasn't about the final possession victory (little early in the season for a near-Heartbreaker don't you think?) in and of itself. That's not how we roll on Internet message boards.

Instead of the Temple game, Hoya fans spent the balance of the week after November 17 in an existential debate over the Temple game's larger meaning for Georgetown's season. Thankfully we stopped short of applying the "existence precedes essence" proposition to the Princeton offense (I'm told Sartre is also not how we roll on Internet message boards).

It's a valid question though: how much stock do you put in a single pre-conference game, or a string of games before December, in predicting how a team will perform during February and March?

If you read Hoyatalk, or talk with any fellow Hoya fan, you know opinions vary on the answer. So which is the CORRECT answer?

Well, that's where noted American philosopher Thomas Earl Petty and his seminal 1981 work Either/Or Hard Promises come in.

The good news is that Coach Thompson has scheduled what he has termed a "Big East week" in early December. The back-to-back, cross-country combination of highly regarded Butler and Washington should provide the Hoyas with an early season litmus test and Hoya fans with answers to their questions about the team's prospects for the real Big East season. It's just a matter of waiting a little longer.

Right?

As I write this, on the television behind me is one of the Day 2 games in this year's Old Spice Classic. Exactly one year ago today the Hoyas beat Wichita State in their first game of the 2008 OSC, last year's "Big East week" if you will (six of the eight participating teams made the NCAA Tournament!).

We learned from that 58-50 victory that the Hoyas faced a tough slog in a 2009 filled with gritty, low scoring, high-turnover games...which was proven mostly true later against Cincinnati, St. John's, and Depaul.

And then we played Tennessee the following day.

We learned from that 90-78 loss that the Hoyas could actually hold their own for long stretches in a fast-paced and fast-breaking game (this remains a topic of intense emotion among Hoya fans), but had to eventually control the tempo or face running out of gas...which is what happened later against Marquette and Syracuse.

Now we were confused.

And then we played Maryland on the final day.

We had a great time during that 75-48 blowout, in which the Hoyas proved they were a well-tuned offensive machine that could dictate the tempo against a quality opponent, and via the principles of the Princeton offense will an inattentive opponent into submission...which is exactly how it went in the first Big East game a month later against Connecticut.

Three days. Three entirely different games played in completely different styles from which you could reasonably draw totally different conclusions about the upcoming season.

And those conclusions? Well, they were all correct at some point during the Big East season.

So is this my way of casting my lot with the "draw no meaningful conclusions" crowd?

Actually, I think everyone has it right.

Any game could turn out to be a window into the future for Hoya fans. If you selected the Wichita State game last November, you probably came closer to the truth than if you went with Tennessee or Maryland.

But you wouldn't have known that for months after the fact.

The sky may have appeared to be falling after Georgetown narrowly escaped the Temple Owls last week...but the same meteorologists forecast a lot of stormy weather after the Hoyas lost to Old Dominion in November 2006 (and, to be fair, clear skies after the Georgetown took down Memphis last December). As much as we hate to admit it as fans, we're wrong at least as often as we're right.

Ordinarily, I'd say you'd do well to take a comprehensive look at a non-conference schedule before predicting conference standings. But how does one sort through the disparate Old Spice Classic results AND that Memphis victory and come up with 7-11 in the Big East?

If you had the answer to this question, Hoyatalk's archives would be about 20 pages shorter.

The waiting is the hardest part.

It's not just the days in between games. It's the months before you know the all-important answer: is my team a contender?

Every day you get one more yard.

Will tomorrow's game contain the key insight into our chances? Maybe.

Will "Big East week" hold the answer to our season? It'd be a nice bonus, since I'll be at MSG for the Butler game.

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart.

Draw any meaningful conclusion you want about tomorrow's game. The best part about college basketball (and sports in general) is that you can "take it on faith" and fit each game into your own pet theory and analyze it to death...or "take it to the heart" and turn it into your own emotional rollercoaster.

What's in store for the 2009-10 Georgetown basketball season? I have no idea whatsoever.

Will Georgetown-Lafayette mean a darn thing two months from now? Search me.

We'll have to wait and find out.

While you're waiting, be sure to stop by the Hoya Hoop Club's table adjacent to Section 120 before tomorrow's game or during halftime. I'll be one of the HHC volunteers spreading the word about the Club's upcoming Gamewatches, Away Game road trips, and other events. We're also still serving as the pick-up point for HHC members who have yet to receive their membership benefits packages in the mail.

If you can't make it to Verizon Center tomorrow, I will also be updating the Hoop Club's Twitter feed live from 7^th and F tomorrow.

Until then...don't jump to any conclusions.

John Hawkes (SFS '04)

Proud Member of Generation Burton