Thompson’s Towel Mailbag 3/1/19: Recruits, Defense, and Hot Takes

Welcome to the weekly Thompson’s Towel Mailbag! In this week’s edition, Dan and Will talk about the state of wing recruits, Georgetown’s abmysmal defense, end-of-season predictions, and their hot takes.

Will there be an impact wing recruit in the Class of 2019? If so will he be a transfer or freshman?

Dan: Love the forward-thinking. Georgetown’s been relatively quiet on the recruiting trail since locking up Qudus Wahab (who dropped 35 points on 13-18 shooting, hauled in 15 boards, and blocked two shots in his season finale for Flint Hill). However, this is a nice observation about Georgetown’s lack of depth on the wing next season. The highest profile wing recruit at the moment for the Hoyas is Terrence Shannon, a 6-foot-6, 185lbs small forward from Chicago. Shannon originally committed to DePaul over Illinois and Florida State but quickly backed out of that arrangement. Shannon is a dynamic offensive weapon, especially when attacking the basket. He’s a crafty finisher in around the basket and would be an intriguing addition to an already explosive Georgetown offense. The only problem with Shannon is that Texas Tech is currently the favorite to acquire his services next year. Ewing and co. are currently considered a dark horse. Josh LeBlanc’s development as an inside-out offensive threat will significantly become more important if Shannon spurns the Hoyas.

Will: The Hoyas lack depth at this position, and outside of Shannon, there hasn’t been much noise about recruiting wings of 2019. Notably, the Hoyas went after five-star recruit Keion Brooks who’s still available, but he left the Hoyas off of his final six. I think they’ll either have to look at who’s left in the spring, or possibly go the grad transfer route for another year. Couldn’t we just slap some Groucho Marx glasses on Greg Malinowski and bring back his “brother” Leg Galinowski?

With a thin roster coupled with a trio of freshman starters, why do you think the coaching staff has exceeded and found ways for this team to lead the Big East in scoring but one who still struggles defensively? Usually a team takes on the makeup of their coach.

Dan: This is a great questions that a lot of Hoya fans have asked me this season. I can think of two primary reasons for this occurring. Firstly, Ewing’s background as an assistant coach in the NBA has significantly affected how he wants to build this team. Big Pat consistently mentions the Golden State Warriors when discussing the offense he desires to build here on the Hilltop. What that means is that Ewing desires to create a spread offense that can attack in transition and burn opponents from deep (Georgetown actually runs sets from the Warriors in game situations). This thinking coupled with Ewing’s love of self-motivated players has resulted in acquiring the most underrated freshman class in the country this season (don’t @ me – you heard that correctly). James and Mac work off of each other nicely in the back-court and Josh has jaw-dropping potential as a stretch-4 who could shoot threes (think Eric Paschall right now). Secondly, I believe that Ewing has faith that he can eventually turn this squad into a fundamentally sound defensive unit that is based off of solid communication, rotation, and hustle. The weird aspect about defense is that one weak link can destroy the whole unit (more often than not Mac has struggled on defense which results in prolonged minutes on the bench, but he showed fantastic strides against DePaul). Stay patient. It may not happen this season, but this team will be much improved on the defensive end next season (especially with the insertion of Omer Yurtseven in the lineup).

Will: Baldwin knows way more about the mechanics of basketball than I do (my career ended in 6th grade on the middle school “B” team), but I’ll look at this question in a slightly different way. I think a big success of this year’s freshman class (which I argue is Ewing’s first actual recruiting class, as his 2018 class was put together in just a few months) is at how athletic everyone is. You look at players recruited before Ewing, like Govan, and I love Jessie, but he’s just not athletic (in comparison to other players; he could drop me). Athleticism just opens up more possibilities in terms of offensive playmaking. Our offensive success also goes to how basketball’s played today; it’s offensively minded and up-tempo. The Hoyas have one of the highest tempos in the country, ranked at 20 on KenPom. WIth these insanely talented freshmen (as Dan’s talked about above) plus these offensive sets that Ewing’s running (which meshes very well with the roster he’s constructed) really bring out the best offensively from this Hoyas team. As for defense, I think it’s the fact that we’re running out lineups that’s made up for ⅖ or ⅗ freshmen at any point, and as talented as they are. Plus, Ewing doesn’t have his personnel for his own defense that he wants to run. Make no mistake, our defense is abysmal; our man to man ranks very low in effectiveness and our zone’s even worse. I think once Ewing gets more of his personnel in there to play his own defense (and moves away from the defense and offensive schemes of the JTIII era) and the team develops, the defense will become serviceable, if not good.

What are your expectations for the rest of the season?

Dan: “One round, one punch, one step at a time. It’s you against you out there.” This a quote from Rocky Balboa to Adonis Creed in the movie Creed as Rocky explains how Adonis can shock the world against “Pretty” Ricky Conlan. I think it should be the exact approach for Ewing and company in their remaining three games. The Hoyas have flashed brilliance sporadically throughout the season (beating St. John’s at MSG, capping off a wild 2nd half comeback against Xavier, eradicating #17 Villlanova), but have also struggled to build off of these moments. This team cannot afford to look past any team remaining on its schedule, because, while they are certainly capable of beating any team in the Big East, they can easily lose to any team as well. Ewing shouldn’t have any issues motivating his team to come out with fire Saturday against Seton Hall considering they absolutely dominated the Hoyas in the first matchup and its Jessie, Trey, and Kaleb’s senior night. But, assuming we beat the Pirates in that matchup (which is a generous assumption), Ewing must find a way to get this team to maintain their focus and intensity at DePaul (a trap game in my opinion) and at Marquette. We’ll worry about the Big East Tournament when it comes. Right now, I’m only focused on getting revenge on Seton Hall and sending Jessie out a winner on Saturday.

Will: I think that thankfully, the first game of the Big East Tournament we’ll be playing in is on Thursday night. It’s just too wildly unpredictable to pick which games we’ll win since we seem to win games we shouldn’t and lose games we should win, so we could very well do something funky like lose to DePaul and then beat Marquette on the road. Either way, I think we’ll be well positioned for the BET and possibly for participation in postseason tournaments, whether that be the NCAAs or the NIT.

What’s a hot take you have about the team?

Dan: In two years, James Akinjo will lead the country (yes, you read that correctly) in assists per game and Mac McClung will lead the Big East in points per game. This dynamic backcourt coupled with Josh LeBlanc’s leadership and fire will lead Georgetown back to national prevalence and a Big East Tournament title. Short-term: I think we scrape by Seton Hall Saturday behind a much better defensive effort from the team. We’ll cap a three-game winning streak by sneaking by DePaul to help bolster our Tournament chances. However, Marquette will remind us that this team is a year away from true contention by knocking us off fairly easily. I will say this: call me delusional, but I truly believe this team is built for the postseason. Whenever this team has its backs against the wall, they come out with a big-time performance. James, Mac, and Josh are just wired in that way. Each freshman lives for the big moment and never shies away from the spotlight. And you really think Jessie wants to go four years without tasting the Big Dance? A Big East Tournament run will happen if, and only if, Jessie plays like a star on both ends. Plain and simple. But I can say this with an absolute certainty: no matter what happens, it’ll take 2-3 years off my life. Roll Hoyas.

Will: We will win the national championship. I want to see Govan lift up that trophy as “One Shining Moment” plays. I’ve already booked my tickets to Minneapolis. Ok, but seriously, I think that this team is very capable of winning the Big East tourney this year. We’ve proven to be frustratingly inconsistent, but I think this team will be able to string together solid performances against teams from a weak conference. I think a lot of this comes down to seeding and how the Big East tourney bracket shakes out, but with the right convergence of factors, I think the Hoyas are poised to make a run this year.

That concludes this week’s edition of the Mailbag! Don’t forget to submit your questions, and we’ll be back up next Friday!

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