Well, we have a chance tonight at home against Villanova to make up for Saturday’s loss to Louisville, and we better make a statement. Though the Hoyas are sitting as 13.5 point favorites against ‘Nova, there are a lot of question marks about this team as we make the final push into the Big East tournament and the NCAAs.

ESPN’s Andy Glockner sums it up in his numerical analysis of the most likely #1 seeds in the tourney (of which, at this point, I think we are a longshot for):

The Hoyas’ numbers might have been the most shocking thing in this exercise, but in thinking about them, they make sense. Georgetown beat UConn on a last-second 3, beat West Virginia on a last-second block and beat Syracuse by two in OT. Toss in the Memphis loss, and you have a team that’s 5-2 against the top 100 (actually the top 50) with a median performance on offense that’s actually worse than their defense. The Hoyas will have more chances down the stretch to improve, but right now these numbers suggest that they are indeed a vulnerable team against comparable opposition. That shouldn’t be totally surprising, since they were all but eliminated in the Sweet 16 last season by Vanderbilt. Right now, their numbers suggest that kind of ceiling this season, even though their overall field goal percentage differential is outstanding.

This is a long way from my undergrad days, when making the NIT was a big deal, but most Hoya fans were hoping for the team to challenge for the title. While we can certainly be competitive in that regard, I would love to see the team step it up a notch in the next 3 weeks to show we can really hang with the big boys.

In brighter news, it is always nice to see such flattering profiles of the Hoyas - in this case, Roy Hibbert and John Thompson III - in the papers of the opposing team. It is nice a sign of respect - especially coming from Philly, which is famous for not giving an inch when it comes to attacking their opponents in the press (see their recent coverage of the Mets acquisition of Johan Santana).

Later, we will take a look at the ‘Nova Matchup tonight.

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Well, I guess we played half a game of basketball Saturday night - but wow, did we look terrible in the second half. The minute Louisville started playing tight defense, we stopped being competitive. We couldn’t get the ball down low to Roy, we started taking bad shots, and our defense collapsed. It was uglier than Pitino’s white suit. We better step it up before Monday night’s matchup with Villanova. We have not been strong against tough competition this year, and we need to prove we can beat talented teams before March rolls around.

I really believe this team, across the board is just as talented as the Jeff Green model last year, but we need to start proving it,

• Pat Forde attributed the game’s outcome to Padgett’s play and Pitino’s wardrobe
• The Box Score wasn’t pretty.
• Louisville overcame a sloppy first half, says Camille Powell.

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Sure, we are halfway through the 2008 season, but that doesn’t mean we should wait 9 months to launch! This site started as a joke - a bunch of my fellow Georgetown alumns and I were sitting around and astonished that this url was available. I promptly registered it and had an idea - take all the daily emails my friends send each other about Hoya Basketball and turn it into a blog. Well, we are now off and running - our entertaining meditation on the Hoyas, JTIII, Big East Basketball, the power of physical hoops and dominating centers, life, the universe, and everything. And remember - Just Because You’re Paranoid, Don’t Mean We’re Not After You!

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