It’s not unusual to see Georgetown among the top 25 teams in the nation at the beginning of any season. So why would it be unexpected this year, when they’re beginning the season No. 20 in The Associated Press preseason poll?
ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla says it’s because there’s a balance between knowing what the Hoyas have — three McDonald’s All-Americans — and what they did last year, which was lose 12 of their final 16 games.
“They’re a mystery team because they need to get their mojo back,” said Franschilla in a conference call this week. “In doing so, they have three anchors in [Austin] Freeman, [Greg] Monroe and Chris Wright to build around, and then a youngster like Jason Clark, who I think is going to emerge this year, I think, as well. They had some very difficult losses in the toughest Big East conference ever, and they really lost their confidence because of that.”
Franschilla will be watching closely to see how Georgetown fares during the non-conference portion of its schedule, which climaxes with games against preseason No. 11 Butler, No. 14 Washington and Old Dominion, which won last year’s CollegeInsider.com championship.
He also isn’t expecting the Hoyas to play anything but the Princeton-style offense that is their trademark under head coach John Thompson III.
“I do think they do have good fits for that offense because they do have a mobile big man in Monroe,” said Fraschilla. “… I don’t know how deep they’ll be but their core of five or six guys is certainly as talented as anybody’s five or six in the Big East.”
