WASHINGTON – As the lights were turned down and the Georgetown faithful rose in the Verizon Center on Nov. 10, cheering so loudly it sounded like a thousand blenders on high speed, a single beacon of a spotlight illuminated the blue banner with the gray lettering that was being raised to rafters.
This was a moment of Hoya Pride that fans awaited for more than two decades. Georgetown’s 2007 run to the Final Four was its first since 1985.
Yet the man responsible for this Georgetown resurgence did not so much as crack a smile. John Thompson III looked more like a man waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
“I honestly was wondering, ‘How long is this going to last before we get to the starting line?'” Thompson asked.
The Post is picking Georgetown to get to the finish line in San Antonio, site of the 2008 Final Four, and be the last team standing.
It doesn’t mean the Hoyas, who opened the season with methodical wins over William & Mary and Michigan, are the best team in November. But they will be in March and the first Monday in April.
“They just wear you down,” William & Mary coach Tony Shaver said. “They get better as the game goes along, and they get better as the season goes along.”
The Hoyas became a bona fide national title contender May 23 when 7-2 center Roy Hibbert pulled a Joakim Noah and announced he was returning for his senior season.
Forward Jeff Green, whom Thompson has described as the smartest basketball player he has coached, elected to go pro, leaving Georgetown with some daunting challenges:
Can Harlem’s Jessie Sapp emerge as a go-to player down the stretch?
Are sophomore DaJuan Summers and freshmen Austin Freeman and Chris Wright capable of providing enough offense to compensate for Green’s 14.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game?
Who replaces Green’s intelligence and intangibles?
“Everyone gets anxious and antsy once you get around the five-minute mark of the game,” Thompson said. “But he had a unique understanding of, ‘This is a big possession right here.’ Without the coach having to say so, he knew, he knew.”
Unlike last season, when the Hoyas weren’t a known commodity, they won’t surprise anyone in ’07-08. Georgetown and Louisville were the preseason picks to win the Big East title. Georgetown won the regular-season and tournament titles last season.
“When you go through an experience like that, we know how hard and how tough it was to get to that point, let alone exceed that point,” guard Jonathan Wallace said. “It leaves a taste in your mind. It’s a bittersweet taste.”
The Hoyas are not an eye-candy team such as Louisville, Memphis, North Carolina or Kansas, which can score in streams. Their Princeton offense is as monotonous as a leaky faucet – drip, drip, drip.
“I have to remind our guys, especially this group, there are no 15-point plays,” Thompson said. “People have a tendency to get anxious, ‘We’re not up by X amount points.”‘
“We have methodically pulled away from teams. If we pull away from them, that’s how we do things,” he added. “We just slowly grind it out.”
Which is what the banner-raising ceremony felt like for Thompson. He does not live in the past or the future.
Asked after the William & Mary game if he liked the banner but would prefer a more prestigious one being raised next season, he needed several minutes to grasp the question.
“Should it be gray instead of blue?” he asked.
No, Thompson was informed, it should be the Hoyas’ second national championship banner.
“I was a little slow, that’s what you meant by the wrong banner,” he said. “I don’t think in those terms. Let’s get better today. If we get better, if we improve, we’ll pick our heads up at the end of the year and see where we stand.”
Thompson should be standing on a ladder in the Alamodome, cutting down the nets and wondering how long such a moment can last.