Saturday, January 3, 2009

Welcome

I always wanted to write college basketball, and certain recent events have freed up some time. So the fact of all these Big East teams in the top 15, combined with Georgetown's win at Connecticut on Monday to start the conference season, served as inspiration.

I am typing in the minutes before the Hoyas' second Big East game of the year -- home against Pitt and ninth-year senior Sam Young. The UConn result (a road win against the nation's No. 2 team) naturally leads me to think the Hoyas have a good shot today (at home against the nation's No. 3 team), but the Hoyas always make me worry, so...I worry.

I worry that the way they rebounded Monday night was an aberration, and won't hold up against DeJuan Blair and Young and Tyrell Biggs. I worry this is one of those games where the bigger, meaner, more experienced team will expose the young, athletic team coming off a big, emotional victory. I think back to last year's Big East title game, when things had been going so well, and how the last Roy Hibbert/Jonathan Wallace team was manhandled by this same group. And I worry.

But I'll watch. I mean, I've watched pretty much every college bowl game so far, and I plan to blow off today's International Bowl to check out Pitt-Georgetown. I want to see if John Thompson's kid can come up with as ingenious a strategy as he did Monday, when he kept Greg Monroe at the top of the key in the first half and forced Hasheem Thabeet to come out and play him a mile from the basket. (A strategy that clearly flustered Thugbeet and worked even more brilliantly once Monroe started hitting three-pointers!)

I'm enjoying watching the emergence of Monroe and Chris Wright, and even if they get beaten up today, I'm not getting down about it. This is going to be a long, brutal Big East season (see: Syracuse struggling to hold off South Florida last night), providing plenty of material (Hoya-related and otherwise) for this blog, and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.

If you're stopping by, I hope you enjoy it too.

2 comments:

  1. I'm pretty disappointed in your commitment to your bowl addiction. I mean you skipped a bowl played in Toronto by a team that has never been to a bowl and a team that wasn't D1 A 5 years ago for a basketball game between top 10 teams? Where is your head?

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  2. Just trying to cushion the coming letdown. I mean, there are only three bowls left. If I didn't have something to do as soon as they ended, I might sink into a brutal depression. I might start watching NASCAR. Can't let that happen.

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