Worst-to-First: Georgetown Back on Top of Big East, As Magical Ride Continues
After a 73-48 drubbing of Creighton in the Big East championship game, Patrick Ewing has his team ready to continue an improbable postseason, as the Hoyas await Selection Sunday reveal.
When did you start believing?
Was it against Marquette, when a Hoyas team that was coming off an ass-kicking against UConn to end the regular season easily dispatched with a team they lost to earlier this season?
Was it against #1 seed Villanova, when freshman point guard Dante Harris calmly knocked down two free throws with 4 seconds left to win the game?
Maybe you needed to see Georgetown go toe-to-toe with a tough Seton Hall team, and withstand multiple pushes from the Pirates, before separating late to punch their ticket to the Big East championship.
No matter when you started believing in this team’s potential, even if it took until Georgetown’s 73-48 annihilation of Creighton in the Big East championship game, Patrick Ewing has made us all believers now.
After being picked to finish last in the Big East in the preseason coaches’ poll, Georgetown has completed a truly incredible worst-to-first season, and now sits as champions of the Big East, something that was unfathomable coming into this season.
“They had us ranked last, and I keep on talking about that Drake song,” cracked a joyous Patrick Ewing last night. “He’s probably getting some more money now that I’m saying it so much. Started from the bottom now we’re here. We started at the bottom and now we’re #1. But we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”
It was 49 years ago from yesterday that Georgetown hired John Thompson Jr. as head coach at Georgetown. And 49 years later, it was Thompson’s beloved protege who took Georgetown back to its rightful place atop the Big East.
If you don’t believe in divine intervention after this week, what are you thinking?
Georgetown’s improbable Big East run was made even sweeter by who Georgetown had to beat to secure its conference-leading eighth Big East title, in the Creighton Bluejays.
John Thompson had to be sitting up in heaven chuckling to himself, seeing Ewing and the Hoyas beating up a Bluejays team led by a head coach in Greg McDermott who made racist remarks to his team earlier the season, telling his players “to stay on the plantation.”
It also would have been gross seeing a new Big East team like Creighton ruin the Cinderella story of a traditional Big East powerhouse, in Georgetown.
But behind 19 points from Chudier Bile, 18 from Jahvon Blair, and 11 points & 12 rebounds from Qudus Wahab, Georgetown easily turned aside the Bluejays, going on a mind-boggling 46-8 rampage after trailing Creighton 13-6 to open the game.
It wasn’t that long ago that a 3-9 Georgetown team lost on the road to Syracuse, 74-69. Things looked grim then. The Hoyas were playing at the level of a team that was closer to 11th place than 1st place.
But the team that returned to play after the program went on a three-week COVID pause was a different kind of animal. Things started to click.
It started with the insertion of Chudier Bile into the starting lineup. Bile, the transfer from Northwestern State, struggled to start the season at Georgetown, averaging 6.7 points and 4.0 rebounds per game, in 16 minutes per game, before Georgetown’s midseason hiatus.
Since then, Bile has done a 180-degree turn on his season, now averaging 28.1 minutes per game, along with 12.6 points and 5.9 rebounds averages. He’s also shooting 41% from the field and 42% from three.
And then there is the newly-crowned Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player, freshman Dante Harris, a player who wasn’t expected to start this season, but was thrust into the role of staring point guard when Jalen Harris left the team.
Harris has flourished in the last month as this team’s maestro on offense, after working through some midseason struggles of his own. And the Big East Tournament was a major coming out party for him. Really, it was a coming out party for Georgetown basketball, because oh boy, are they back.
In the Big East Tournament, Harris averaged 11.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game, and singlehandedly powered Georgetown past #1 Villanova in the quarterfinal round.
Aside from the obvious thrill of watching this team win a Big East title, a major takeaway from this week is that Georgetown has its point guard of the future, in Harris. Period. Full stop. Sorry, Chris Lykes.
And then, of course, how can you not smile from ear-to-ear watching Jahvon Blair and Jamorko Pickett, members of Patrick Ewing’s first recruiting class at Georgetown, get rewarded in a major way for sticking by this program the last four years.
“I’m just so happy right now, I don’t know what to say honestly,” said an elated Jahvon Blair after the championship game.
When asked about what this title meant to himself and Pickett, having come in with Ewing to Georgetown, Blair responded, “It means the world. It’s his [Ewing’s] first time, it’s my first time, it’s Jamorko’s first time. We started with him from Day One. Just to see how happy he is, it just makes me happy.”
The culture that showed signs of taking root last year with Jagan Mosely and Terrell Allen leading the way has continued to blossom in the Georgetown program this year, and it’s Blair and Pickett who deserve the credit as this team’s standard-bearers this season, as the ones who got this thing across the line and helped Georgetown get back to greatness.
Numbers and stats aside, Pickett and Blair are forever a part of Georgetown lore now, and their efforts in the Big East Tournament were major factors in the Hoyas’ unlikely, yet extremely satisfying, conference tournament run.
The best thing about all of this? The ride isn’t over. Georgetown will find out its next opponent tonight at 6 PM, when the NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed. And if this last week has taught us anything, it’s that this Georgetown team can play with anyone right now. They defend tenaciously, they rebound tirelessly, and they share the ball on offense like a well-oiled machine.
For a team with no clear and obvious star, the togetherness this team is playing with will allow it to have a fighter’s chance against any team in this tournament.
It’s something that Patrick Ewing has been working toward, molding this team into the type of squad that he featured on back in the day when he patrolled the paint in a Georgetown uniform. And it hasn’t been easy for Ewing, who has dealt with transfers, suspensions, and setbacks of various other forms in his quest to put Georgetown back on top.
“I’m here where a lot of people didn’t think I had the ability. I’m proving everyone wrong,” said Ewing. “I worked at this craft for 15 years in the NBA, and was given the opportunity here at Georgetown. We’ve been through some trials and tribulations, kids leaving, guys stepping up and playing to exhaustion last year… But everyone has done their part to get us to this point.”
The Hoyas are here. They are back. And they are the best story going in college basketball right now. Who would have thought any of this to be possible in November?
“From the first day we met, once we got on campus, I told them we had enough talent to win the Big East, to make it to the NCAA Tournament, and once you get to the NCAA Tournament, anything is possible,” said Ewing.
Now it’s time to dance, and you better believe that anything is possible with this team. So don’t look away now. Enjoy the show.