Georgetown coach Craig Esherick already has one national championship ring in his possession.
The ring is now almost 17 years old and came from the John Thompson-Patrick Ewing 1984 title run when Esherick was a young assistant coach then. It is sitting in a safety deposit box. Someday, Esherick says, he will show this season's Hoyas his prized possession.
But not now.
Esherick, who was named head coach when Thompson unexpectedly retired in January 1999, wants his team to make its own history and not live in the past. With a 16-0 record, a No. 12 ranking and a two-game sweep of preseason Big East favorite Seton Hall, Georgetown is accomplishing that feat after spending the past three seasons in NIT-ville.
|  | | The 7-foot Ruben Boumtje Boumtje is the Hoyas' latest dominating low-post player. |
Unranked and not unexpected to do much when the season began, the Hoyas have been turned by Esherick, 44, into the class of the Big East and a team to watch on the national stage.
How has Esherick done it? By using the same formula that made his towel-wearing predecessor so successful -- namely, defensive intensity, depth enough to substitute like an NHL coach, offensive rebounding and a great shotblocker. This one with a name that rolls off the lips -- Ruben Boumjte Boumjte.
"John Thompson is the one who taught me this business. I have his entire philosophy in my veins," said Esherick. "I don't have to consult a book to figure out what to do next. He taught me to play offense, play defense. So when I coach, I am repeating things I heard as a player, heard as an assistant here and it ends up being very easy.
"We have a blueprint for success. Let's just follow it."
Boumtje Boumtje, the 7-footer from Cameroon, is averaging 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and three blocks a game. He should be a first-round pick in June's NBA draft. He's already had a taste of the NBA life, working out this past summer with former Hoyas Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Jahidi White and Othello Harrington.
But the Hoyas' defense has never been questioned in D.C. Their offense, however, was another story -- even a joke before the season.
Georgetown was a place where jump shots went to die. The Hoyas shot 33.3 percent last season. This season, they are at 46 percent, largely because Esherick has stressed improved shot selection and unselfish offensive flow. Plus, Kevin Braswell has blossomed at the point.
Boumtje Boumtje is hardly the Hoyas' only star. Braswell and versatile 6-10 senior forward Lee Scruggs join him as three of the Big East's top 10 players. Scruggs has an inside-out game that has NBA scouts comparing him to former UConn star and now long-time NBA vet Cliff Robinson, while Braswell scored 26 against Seton Hall on Monday night. And if that weren't enough, freshman widebody Michael Sweetney (12.5 ppg) is a load down low.
"Last year was hard because there were games where I scored a lot and thought I played good, (but)coach would tell me I have to get everybody else involved and I didn't understand," said Braswell, who is third in the Big East in assists (6.9) while averaging 10.4 point a game. "Then I spent the whole summer playing with these guys and I got a feel for what everybody could do.
"Now I understand that if I have somebody on the wing who can't shoot the jump shot, why give it to him? Wait until he cuts and maybe there's a backdoor. I understand the game better. I watched a lot of NBA games with John Stockton last spring and saw how he could dominate a game by scoring four points."
Braswell is not the only one to change his role. Esherick has convinced Scruggs, who rejoined the team after the end of the first semester, and Perry, a former McDonald's All-America, to come off the bench. The results have been staggering. Perry has rediscovered his shot after working on his mechanics with high school coach Bob Hurley Sr. during the summer in Jersey City, N.J.
"It's meant a lot," Perry says. "Coming in as a freshman, sitting out, it's been tough for me because I never sat out for a year in basketball since I was 11. The following years I've been here have been good. There's been a lot of ups and downs, but it gave me a sense of maturity, made me more of a man, a better player."
Scruggs is the closest thing the Hoyas have to a go-to guy. "The pros know who he is," Esherick says.
Esherick believes his team planted the seeds for this season's success last spring when the Hoyas defeated Syracuse in the Big East quarterfinals, then outscored Virginia in a triple-overtime NIT game at Charlottesville.
This year, Georgetown, which has been criticized in the past for playing a cupcake non-conference schedule, already has wins over the College of Charleston and Minnesota in Hawaii, along with road wins over Louisville, Houston, West Virginia and Seton Hall. The 99 points the Hoyas scored at Seton Hall on Monday night was the most the Pirates have given up since a 105-96 loss to Ohio State back in 1995.
"This team has surprised me," Esherick said. "At the beginning of the year, I didn't think we'd be this good on the road. That's really a tribute to Kevin (Braswell). He's really become a point guard."
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Games of the Week
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Missouri at Virginia
Saturday, 2 p.m. (ESPN2)
Former Duke assistant Quin Snyder returns to ACC country with one of nation's best swingmen in Missouri's 6-6 sophomore Kareem Rush (21.7 ppg). Virginia, which is 8-1 on its homecourt this season, counters with stellar wings Chris Williams (14.9 ppg) and Roger Mason, Jr. (14.5 ppg). This game was been moved from ABC to ESPN2 to avoid potential conflicts with ABC's coverage of George W. Bush's inauguration.
St. Joseph's (Pa.) at Xavier
Saturday
Two of the A-10's best teams and best freshmen -- St. Joseph's point guard Jameer Nelson and Xavier shooting guard Romain Sato -- will be on display in this one. If the Hawks win here, then they will own a nine-game win streak, will have early control in the A-10, and should be nationally ranked. If Xavier wins, there will be logjam atop the A-10 standings.
Syracuse at Seton Hall
Sunday 3:30 p.m. (ABC)
A home loss here and Seton Hall can pretty much kiss goodbye any hopes of a Big East West Division crown with Georgetown and Syracuse playing so well. To knock off the Orangemen, Seton Hall's super frosh Eddie Griffin -- who suffered a bruised left hip against Georgetown Monday night -- must be 100 percent so the Hall can haul down some boards. The Pirates, who were outrebounded 56-47 by the Hoyas earlier this week, have lost the backboard battle in seven straight games.
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Outside Providence ...
Most people have caught one of Georgetown's wins over Seton Hall, but chances are you haven't watched the Big East's second-most surprising team. Few people have seen Providence, including Rhode Islanders. Twelve of the Friars' first 15 games this season didn't even get televised locally.
It's hard to blame the networks, though. Coming into this season, the Friars didn't seem to warrant much attention.
"We're kind of that invisible team," Providence coach Tim Welsh said. "Nobody thought we were even going to be worth putting on television. That's OK. We understand where we've been and where we want to go."
Where the Friars have been is beyond the depths that league standings or statistics can show. After the team went 11-19 last season, PC's worst record since going 11-20 in 1984-85, a fight involving players and students resulted in the expulsion of three players and the embarrassment of the basketball program.
Where the Friars would like to go is in the direction they're currently heading. The Friars (11-4), expected by many to be the second-worst team in the league, just ahead of Virginia Tech, beat then-No. 15 Connecticut Saturday and have already matched last season's win total of 11.
The Friars appeared to have nothing coming into the season. There were no NBA-ready recruits on the way, no high-scoring players coming back. But they did have a ball-hawking 5-7 point guard named John Linehan, who when healthy, has properly run the full-court pressure Welsh has tried to install since he left Iona for Providence in 1998.
"We've become a tremendous defensive team because of him," Welsh said of John Linehan. "He's the best on-ball defensive player in college basketball."
After missing all but six games last season because of a groin injury and three operations, Linehan has returned to terrorize opposing point guards. He was named Big East Player of the Week after forcing UConn's Taliek Brown into eight turnovers. With Linehan back and three freshmen (Marcus Douthit, Maris Laksa and Sheiku Kabba) scoring off the bench, the Friars now go 10-deep.
"That's a much improved team," said Villanova guard Jermaine Medley. "They have lots of interchangeable parts, but Linehan is the guy who makes them go. You watch tapes of them, that guy's all over the place."
... It's a bumpy Rhode
When Rhode Island met Xavier last Saturday, the Rams had only eight scholarship players in uniform -- seniors Andrew Wafula and Tiger Womack, juniors Dinno Daniels, Zach Marbury and Marcus Evans, sophomore Howard Smith and freshmen Andre Scott and Steve Mello.
While URI only dressed eight that night, it has 11 on its account and a 12th was about to join. The three additional players are sophomore Brian Woodward, the team's most acclaimed signee since Lamar Odom, who is out with a sprained right knee; junior Tavorris Bell, who is academically ineligible; and junior Tip Vinson, who left school in September.
Even though Vinson has not returned, his scholarship still counts toward the URI total. NCAA rules say any player who attends class for even one day counts toward the total for the full year and the scholarship cannot be taken by someone else.
The Rams had hoped to add two more players for the spring semester. One of those two, Lazare Adingono, has arrived from Cameroon and was at the Xavier game. Adingono, a 22-year-old captain of the Cameroon national team, is a 6-6 perimeter player who has three years of eligibility.
"He can shoot and he's 100 percent healthy, so we'll put him out on the court as soon as possible," said Rhode Island coach Jerry DeGregorio prior to Wednesday's A-10 game against Fordham. "Lazare will really help us."
Adingono's help is needed immediately because of the bad news on Bell and Woodward. Bell's appeal of his academic suspension was turned down, meaning he is gone for the rest of the year. And perhaps for good.
"(Tavorris) is a huge loss. He was our top scorer and second-best rebounder," said DeGregorio, who could be hunting for a job come March. "Academically though, he let his teammates down, his coaches down, me down and most importantly himself down. It's a painful lesson for him to learn, but hopefully he'll grow from it.
"He's talked about re-enrolling in the summer. That's up to him. Right now, he's not a part of our basketball program. But, I still care about him. He's one of my kids and I can't help but care about him."
Meanwhile, Woodward, a sophomore guard who has been able to play in only five games all season -- games in which he showed he would be one of the team's best players -- remains out. The sprain to his right knee still has not healed and the time frame for his potential return has been pushed back to at least another two weeks. DeGregorio said Woodward will not play until he is 100 percent healthy.
With Woodward out and Bell's college hoops future up in the air, Rhode Island has started 10 different players in its first 16 games, with only one, Zach Marbury, starting every game.
Around the East
Full Nelson: Temple coach John Chaney heard the question for the first time this week. It's a question he's undoubtedly going to hear 60,000 times over the next four years: "John, how did you let Jameer Nelson get away?"
Nelson is the odds-on favorite to win Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year honors. And after he led St. Joseph's (Pa.) to a 73-51 loss on Chaney's Owls this past Tuesday night, the coach was forced to answer the Nelson question a thousand or so times in 20 minutes. Mature beyond his years, Nelson chose St. Joe's over Temple and torched the Owls the first chance he got.
Nelson scored 16 points on 5 for 6 shooting from the field, handed out seven assists and forced seven turnovers for the Hawks (14-3, 5-0 Atlantic 10), who handed Chaney his worst-ever Big 5 loss.
"He's going to be special, if he keeps his nose clean," said Chaney. "You have to send two people at him to try and stop him. I think Jameer makes all the difference in the world on that team ... It's a shame he's wearing a St. Joe's uniform."
So, John, why did you finish second in the chase for Nelson, who replaced current Providence star John Linehan as the starting point guard at Chester (Pa.) High School?
"We just got on him too late," said Chaney. "We ended up getting a guard who we really like in Brian Polk (a 6-3 scoring ace who is sitting out this season as a partial qualifier), but we thought we had a shot at Jameer too. One of his AAU coaches was Darrin Pearsall, who played for me at Temple. We thought we could come in late and get him, but by then (St. Joseph's coach) Phil Martelli had formed a great relationship with the kid and he got him. You can't win them all."
Since adding Nelson to a veteran team, the Hawks have nearly won them all in 2000-01. Their three losses -- to Vanderbilt (78-76), DePaul (80-76) and Villanova (78-75) -- have come by a total of nine points. Nelson's pass-first mentality has been contagious as the Hawks have made the extra pass all season long. And Nelson's on-the-ball pressure has enabled the Hawks to be a much better defensive team, especially against the 3-point shot.
Last season, the Hawks were second-to-last in the A-10 in 3-point field goal defense. This year, they lead the conference. The Hawks widened that lead in Tuesday's battle of A-10 unbeatens, holding Temple to 5-for-25 3-point shooting on their homecourt.
The terrific guard play of Nelson and senior Marvin O'Connor, the all-around brilliance of 6-9 junior Bill Phillips, and the team's aforementioned unselfish play and tenacious defense against the trey had Chaney saying that Hawks were definitely "a top-20 team." The performance had Martelli experiencing flashbacks to 1997, when St. Joseph's went all the way to the Sweet 16.
"I have a lot of fun watching these guys. I'm start having flashbacks," said Martelli, whose team has run off eight straight wins. "There's definitely a buzz, everywhere I go. I think we're in for a heckuva ride."
They certainly have a steady driver in Nelson.
On the hot seat: If the tone of reporters' questions on this week's ACC conference call are any indication, folks in North Carolina are clearly frustrated with N.C. State coach Herb Sendek, whose team needs to make a remarkable turnaround to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the coach's five seasons.
The Wolfpack (9-6, 1-3) finally picked up its first ACC win of the season Tuesday night, 72-60 over Georgia Tech. But it appears Sendek will have to string together quite a few more wins to remain off the hot seat.
"Our players aren't isolated from hearing some of the rumbling," said Sendek, who signed a five-year contract extension this past offseason. "Nobody wants to do better than we do ourselves. It is a great personal challenge for those of us involved."
Sendek isn't the only ACC coach feeling the heat. Earlier this week, Florida State athletics director Dave Hart gave coach Steve Robinson, who is in his fourth season at Florida State, the dreaded vote of confidence. The Seminoles are 5-12 as they prepare to host No.6 North Carolina this Saturday afternoon.
Chip off the old block? Earlier this week, John Chappell, a 6-10, 235-pound center from Milwaukee, announced his intention to play for Wake Forest next season.
Does that last name sound familiar to ACC fans? It should.
Chappell, who spent an extra season at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia, is the son of Len Chappell, Wake Forest's first consensus All-America whose retired jersey No. 50 hangs from the rafters at Joel Coliseum.
Although he's not expected to have the impact on the program as his father -- who averaged 30.1 points and 15.2 rebounds in 1962 while leading the Deacons to their only Final Four appearance -- Chappell is a strong, rugged player whose stock has risen considerably since he graduated from New Bern West High School in Wisconsin.
Chappell chose Wake Forest over Marquette and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Other schools showing interest were Dayton, SMU, Xavier, Oregon, Gonzaga and St. Louis.
Older ACC fans might recall that before the arrival of Tim Duncan, the 1997 National Player of the Year, Len Chappell was widely considered the greatest player in Demon Deacons' basketball history. Playing in an era when freshmen weren't eligible for varsity competition, Chappell averaged 17.4 points and 12.5 rebounds as a sophomore, and 26.6 points and 14 rebounds as a junior before becoming, as a senior, the only ACC player to average 30 points in a season. A two-time ACC Player of the Year, the 6-8, 240-pound Chappell ranks third all-time in both scoring and rebounding.
Rich get richer: Michael Thompson, one of the nation's top high school juniors, recently announced that he will play his college basketball at Duke, starting in the 2002-2003 season. The 6-10, 250-pounder averages 26 points and 11 rebounds at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, Ill.
Duke's Mike Krzyzewski is landing one of the nation's top, young power forwards in Thompson, who is ranked as the nation's No. 19 junior by Rivals100.com. Thompson was courted by Stanford, Notre Dame, Illinois, North Carolina and Georgetown.
Thompson is the second junior to commit to Duke, joining 6-6 J.J. Redick of Roanoke, Va. The Blue Devils are also in hot pursuit, along with North Carolina, N.C. State and countless others, of 6-10 junior Shavlik Randolph of Raleigh. Many feel Randolph is the nation's top junior. He has been a fixture at key Duke games of late.
Power players: In this week's coaches poll, all of the top 25 teams come from the six power conferences: ACC (5 ranked teams), Big East (5), SEC (4), Big Ten (4), Big 12 (4) and Pac-10 (3). In other words, there are no Tulsas, Gonzagas or Butlers anywhere in the mix.
"A lot of that has to do with the amount of exposure that the so-called power conferences get," says North Carolina coach Matt Doherty. "And this year, I guess the teams from the power conferences have taken care of business during the out-of-conference portion of their schedules."
Another factor could be that once a mid-major team has a successful run or two, their coach (see: Bill Self from Tulsa to Illinois; Steve Alford from Southwest Missouri State to Iowa; Barry Collier from Butler to Nebraska; Paul Hewitt from Siena to Georgia Tech) gets gobbled up by the more established conference, thus weakening the one-time Cinderella.
"I hadn?t really thought about that, but it seems to make some sense," says Doherty.
Quote to Note
"Because of all the talented players they've had in the past and currently have, it is one heck of challenge to beat North Carolina, whether the game is played in Chapel Hill or Istanbul."
-- Clemson coach Larry Shyatt after his Tigers fell to 0-47 all-time in Chapel Hill, dating back to 1926 in games against North Carolina.
Bill Doherty, a freelance writer from Bethlehem, Pa., and covers East Coast men's basketball for ESPN.com.
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