Georgetown can put bad memories to rest with a couple of wins
When the Big East Tournament was brought up to sophomore center Greg Monroe after Georgetown’s win over Cincinnati last weekend, a smiling but unsettled head coach John Thompson III quickly interjected with what has been a season-long refrain: This is a different team than last year.
This week the Hoyas (20-9, 10-8 Big East) can finally put to rest comparisons from a year ago, and they can do so before they even take the court in Manhattan. Their first game in the five-day knockout competition at Madison Square Garden falls one day and one round later than last year, when they were unceremoniously bounced by St. John’s.
“I am not looking past the Big East right now,” said Monroe, who also will play in his first NCAA Tournament (the Hoyas were relegated to the NIT last spring). “I’ve been there, and I know it was only one game. This time I am trying to make a bigger splash than we did last year.”
Georgetown won’t play until the second day — against the DePaul/South Florida winner. Meanwhile, the Red Storm can again play spoiler in the first round, as they face Connecticut, the most surprising member of the conference’s bottom eight that opens play Tuesday.
No. 1 Syracuse and the conference’s other top three seeds (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Villanova) won’t play until Thursday’s quarterfinals after earning a pair of byes through the first two rounds. Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame and Louisville have byes into round two.
This is the second year that the tournament has included all 16 Big East teams, but it doesn’t have universal approval, and it doesn’t guarantee advancement by higher seeds. Last year sixth-seeded Syracuse upset Connecticut in six overtimes in the quarterfinals and West Virginia in the semis before losing in the final.
“I think the double-bye is awful,” Orange head coach Jim Boeheim told the New York Daily News. “Conventional wisdom says the double-bye teams should fare better, but (two) of the four lost last year. If that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does.”
