Nov. 11, 2011

At the side entrance to McDonough Gymnasium sits a soda machine. Nothing special about it--certainly not one of these wondrous devices--just a regular old red box. But one day the summer before last, that red box was the site of something magical.

(Okay, I'm severely overstating things: it didn't start raining seven-foot centers with range to the three-point line or anything like that. Although now that you mention it...there's a 50/50 chance he was at McDonough that day.)

It was a typical summer weekend afternoon in Washington, DC...which is to say, unbearably humid. I was on my way to McDonough for another session of Kenner League games, and wilting under the oppressive heat. So, like the good southern-raised boy I am, I sought relief in the refreshing taste of Coca Cola.

I deposited a dollar twenty-five into the familiar red behemoth, and waited for the familiar BA-DOM-BOM-BA-DOM of 20 ounces of carbonated sugar water caroming down the chute within.

BA-DOM

(???)

Now wait a minute.

Clearly, the Coke bottle didn't feel like spending time outside in D.C. July either. Undeterred, I knelt down, rolled up my sleeve, jimmied my trapped soda loose, and walked satisfied and soon to be refreshed towards the side entrance, when...

BOM-BA-DOM.

(???)

Now waaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute.

In its quotidian form, "serendipity" refers to those happy accidents in life when one finds something unexpected...for instance, a free 20oz soda. This Coke's on you, Horace Walpole.

My supply of sweetwater doubled, I doubled back to the side door and...

BOM-BA-DOM.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous, but why not...I could always save one for later and...

BOM-BA-DOM.

All told, I snagged a 4-for-1 deal on serendipity from the McDonough soda machine that afternoon. You may have heard about this if you attend Kenner League games with me...or work with me...or have been near me when I'm at a soda machine. I've told my Four Cokes story countless times, as if I had won the lottery jackpot--truth be told, I have much better luck with soda machines than scratch-off machines.

It was all so unexpected: why, of all places, would I be struck with serendipity at a soda machine on my way to the Kenner League?

In a more technical sense, serendipity can also refer to the act of stumbling upon connections that lead to valuable conclusions.

It works like a charm in scientific research, and as a writer I enjoy letting serendipity work its magic with whatever strange connections make it into my blogs.

Part of the fun of writing, and being a college basketball fan generally, is finding links between disparate pieces of data, and extrapolating them into a unified theory of everything. Any game, no matter how trivial, could be the signpost of a new future. Any player could be the archetype of something new and wondrous (probably not a soda machine).

Any moment, basically, could be one of serendipity.

Although the odds of finding it at a Kenner League game are usually the same as pulling four Cokes out of a machine.

"Glorified pick-up ball," John Thompson III called the annual summer showcase in response to a question at the recent Hoya Hoop Club Open Practice about his team's Kenner League performance.

The implication: your stumbled-upon connections from the Tombs-Beyond Belief game probably aren't leading to any valuable conclusions.

(Although, the penicillin might come in handy if you eat the hot dogs...)

To be fair, Kenner League has its moments of found-money serendipity: Allen Iverson's surprise debut in August 1994, the memorable 2006 Tombs-Clydes matchup featuring seven members of the Hoyas Final Four team, and the summer of 2009 "Fake Durant" rumors that brought Kenner as close as it'll ever come to a 17^th century Russia style Time of Troubles.

And it's not like the entertainment value isn't high: we created Kenner League BINGO over this summer to record the strange happenings in McDonough.

It's just that, while chugging from a third Coca Cola in McDonough on a Saturday afternoon in August, one is probably more likely to find an accurate game schedule than any lasting insights about the upcoming season.

Right?

BA DOM

But here I was on a Friday night in August, and something started to happen.

Kenner League offers the first chance for Georgetown fans to watch the Hoyas incoming class, who usually play together on The Tombs (often, strangely, in purple uniforms). As it happens, this incoming class--Tyler Adams, Mikael Hopkins, Otto Porter, Jabril Trawick, and Greg Whittingon--had been somewhat unique, both in numbers and in their impressive 6-2 summer league record. Playing without a veteran Hoya teammate, the freshmen had advanced to the playoffs, the crowds at McDonough growing as the buzz slowly built around their performance...to this quarterfinal grudge match against the veteran-laden Team Turner.

You would have thought it was done when Jabril Trawick--"a ball of intensity," I'd call him in my game recap--picked up his ninth (yes, ninth) personal foul. Trawick and NBA draft pick Nolan Smith had waged a fierce and occasionally surreal battle of 17 combined fouls, a near walkout by Smith, and some good natured trash talking by Team Turner's coach during Trawick's free throws. Now, with under a minute to go and Tombs down three, it seemed the buzz would fade and we'd have had an encouraging but pedestrian summer of basketball.

Except things started to happen.

Tombs cut the deficit to one on a pair of free throws, and forced a critical turnover. Then, in a wild final sequence, Mikael Hopkins--who, if I'd called him anything at all, would have been "quiet" or "mercurial"--tipped in Tombs' fourth put-back effort for with five seconds remaining to steal an 81-80 victory.

The conclusion I drew that night: Jabril Trawick was always a fierce competitor, but Mikael Hopkins may be a sleeping giant.

"The Kenner League playoffs this year have impressed," I wrote in the introduction to the quarterfinals recap...not realizing this would be only the third best game of the weekend.

BOM-BA-DOM

Seventeen hours later, the Tombs were down seventeen points with six minutes remaining in their semifinal matchup. Jabril Trawick was battling through an off game, and Mikael Hopkins had gone quiet after having his first two shot attempts rejected.

And then, after dozens of Hoya fans had streamed out of McDonough during the previous timeout, it happened again.

Three pointers by Otto Porter and Greg Whittington cut the deficit to ten, where it stayed until just under three minutes remained. With nothing to lose, Tombs employed an all-out full court press, the long arms of Porter and Whittington deflecting passes and trapping defenders at every corner of the court.

And it worked. Every timely deflection, fortunate bounce, favorable call, and just plain inexplicable piece of luck (an uncontested layup rolled off the rim) went the Tombs way. Unbelievably, Tombs erased their seventeen point deficit and tied the score at 63 with 53 seconds left...and never let up on their full court press, forcing two more steals before icing a 67-63 win.

The conclusion I drew that afternoon: Otto Porter and Greg Whittington can make an impact anywhere on the court.

"The Kenner League keeps topping itself," I wrote in introducing this epic comeback. Incredulous, my friends and I wondered walking out of the gym if we'd seen everything.

"The wildest playoff tournament you could have imagined will end with the best matchup Hoya fans could have drawn up."

It happened on Sunday afternoon August 7^th, when the Tombs and their five freshmen faced off against Clyde's and their battery of Hoya alumni including Austin Freeman, Greg Monroe, and Jeff Green.

The previous Tombs-Clydes game three weeks earlier had been a dud--a 72-46 Tombs romp. Surely this would be a more competitive game, but how could it stand up to a buzzer beater and a 17-point comeback?

It would be more competitive than anyone could imagine. Both teams traded small leads throughout the first three quarters, punching and counterpunching--figuratively--before Whittington and sophomore Aaron Bowen went face to face--literally--earning dual ejections and ratcheting the intensity of the finals game to a level unseen in recent summers. Freshman...veterans...everyone was here to win.

The largest crowd I can recall in seven years of Kenner League--things were happening this summer--watched stunned at serendipity disguised as cruel fate: Austin Freeman's game-winning layup attempt in the dying moments of regulation snuffed out by a careless goaltending violation.

It would have all been too perfect: the Tombs riding a wave of youthful exuberance, tenacious effort, and inexplicable luck to a surprise Kenner League championship. And who better to score the winning bucket than Trawick--the ball of intensity who won over Hoya fans with his stellar play and leadership over the summer--who drove the lane in the final seconds of overtime...only to be snuffed out by Green and Monroe.

This was no fairy tale...merely an epic: Tombs finally succumbed 105-101 in double overtime.

The valuable conclusion I drew that afternoon, connecting the dots of a whirlwind finish to an exciting summer of basketball:

Sure, maybe luck played a role. But it sure was fun.

BOM-BA-DOM

Many Hoya fans undoubtedly will connect the 2011-12 Hoyas with JTIII's first Georgetown team of 2004-05.

They'll likely recall the latent potential of the Jeff Green-Roy Hibbert-Jonathan Wallace-Tyler Crawford class and with great optimism project similar breakouts for Adams, Hopkins, Porter, Trawick, and Whittington.

They'll also, with measured hindsight, temper expectations for this season. Green and Co. after all were 8-8 in their first Big East season, and played in the NIT.

The above of course is less serendipity than simple observation. I'd pondered the comparisons between past and future Hoyas throughout the summer--a task made all the more relevant because all of the veterans save Hibbert suited up against the Tombs at some point.

But it took Tombs' fateful run through the Kenner League playoffs--and the happy accidents of serendipity along the way--for me to find a connection to this season.

The valuable conclusion I drew the afternoon of the final:

Sure, maybe luck played a role. But it sure was fun.

When I walked up to that soda machine two summers ago, my only hope was that my drink would be cold. I didn't expect 80oz of Coke to come bounding down the shoot.

That was probably just dumb luck.

When I walked into McDonough Gym this summer, my only expectation was to pass the time in an air conditioned room watching the next generation of Hoya recruits. I couldn't possibly have planned on seeing the most wildly entertaining three days of Hoya basketball--and I'm not joking here--since the 2007 East Regional Semifinal and Final.

Dumb luck? Maybe. Over-exaggeration? You can decide that for yourselves.

I prefer to think of the 2011 Kenner League playoffs as the happy accident that made me realize why I'm looking forward to the 2011-12 Georgetown basketball season.

It's not about the players, per se, although Jabril Trawick is my favorite freshman in years and I think Otto Porter shares many of the same qualities as a young Jeff Green.

And it's certainly not about expectations, per se: the wisdom of the Big East media crowds is often wrong, but a 10^th place preseason prediction is eminently fair for this untested Georgetown team.

Watching the 2011-12 freshmen this summer reminded me of why I liked watching the 2004-05 Hoyas: win or lose--and the balance was fairly close--fans weren't burdened with expectations. Instead, we collectively embraced the "found money" moments of joy (Roy Hibbert's game winning dunk against Notre Dame) and let the tougher moments roll off, because we were having so much fun watching a new generation of players develop.

Too often in recent years, we as fans have expected four Cokes every game as a matter of course, and been disappointed when only one pops out of the machine. After all of the soul searching and questioning that comes with a long offseason (I hear Big State U has a Coke Freestyle Machine and recruits love it!), maybe a new approach is in order on our end.

What I'm looking forward to in 2011-12 is Georgetown doing the unexpected. Maybe Greg Whittington is the next under the radar Georgetown star. Maybe there will be a double-OT game with triple-digit scoring. Maybe serendipity finds this team.

Or maybe the soda will be flat. Or maybe it'll get stuck in the chute. And that's fine.

Will they be any good? If glorified pick-up ball is any indication, with a little luck they might be.

At the very least, I'm confident this season will be more happy than accident.

John Hawkes (SFS '04)

Proud Member of Generation Burton