- Jaren Jackson Named Asst. Coach
- More 2003-04 Schedule Additions
- Sweetney Drafted By Knicks
- Post: ACC TO Expand To 11
- R. Thompson Joins Arkansas Staff
- Sweetney Chooses NBA Draft
- Georgetown 61st In NACDA Cup
- Roy Hibbert Feature
- Gaughan Wins Third Race At TMS
- Bowman Selected As USA Junior Team Finalist
| Jaren Jackson Named Asst. Coach | 6/28/03 |
GUHoyas.com has announced the addition of Jaren Jackson (B'89) to the coaching staff, replacing Ronny Thompson (C'92), who left for Arkansas last week.
At Georgetown, the 6-4 Jackson improved in scoring in each year, starting all 34 games as a senior and averaged 12.5 points per game as the Hoyas advanced to the Big East title and the NCAA Elite Eight. Jackson averaged 7.5 ppg over his college career.
Jackson was not selected in the 1989 draft but still managed a 13 year NBA career across eight clubs, averaging 5.5 points a game. Jackson scored 31 against Seattle in 1998 while a member of the San Antonio Spurs, and was a key 6th man for the Spurs' 1999 title team.
Jackson retired from the NBA after last season, and this is is first coaching assignment.
"Jaren is a tremendously perceptive and intelligent individual," said coach Craig Esherick (B'78) in the release. "He was the valedictorian for his high school and was an excellent student when he was here. Jaren has first hand experience with achieving academic and athletic success at Georgetown. He has the intelligence and experience to make a real contribution to the coaching staff.”
| More 2003-04 Schedule Additions | 6/25/03 |
The Big East Conference has finalized its conference slate, with a change of format from previous years.
A key change this year is that the divisional structure has been discontinued. Instead, schools will play three teams home and away, playing the remaining schools only once during the season.
While Georgetown has not announced any specifics, the following games have been announced by member schools. None of the schools that have announced schedules below will play a home and home with the Hoyas.
- Georgetown will have home games against Boston College, Pittsburgh , Rutgers, Syracuse, and Villanova.
- Georgetown will have away games against Connecticut, Notre Dame Providence, Seton Hall, and West Virginia.
By process of elimination, it appears games with Miami, St. John's, and Virginia Tech will be home and away games for the Hoyas.
If so, here are the likely home and home series per announced schedules to date:
| Team | Home & Away | Team | Home & Away |
| BC: | PC, St. John's, S. Hall | Rutgers | Miami, S. Hall, VT |
| UConn: | ND, Pitt, Syr. | St. John's | BC, GU, WVU |
| Georgetown: | Miami, St. John's, VT | Seton Hall | BC, PC, Rutgers |
| Miami: | GU, Rutgers, 'Nova | Syracuse | UConn, ND, Pitt |
| Notre Dame: | UConn, Pitt, Syr. | Villanova | Miami, PC, WVU |
| Pittsburgh | UConn, ND, Syr. | Va. Tech | GU, Rutgers, WVU |
| Providence | BC, S. Hall, 'Nova | W. Virginia | St. John's, 'Nova, VT |
| NBA Draft: Sweetney To New York | 6/27/03 |
Mike Sweetney has been selected as the 1st round pick of the New York Knickerbockers in Thursday's NBA Draft. Here's the first of many stories from Fox Sports on the pick.
"He's a great athlete, but even more important, he's a first-class guy. He was a great representative of [Georgetown]," said former Hoyas assistant Ronny Thompson to the Washington Post . "Some people are called high maintenance or low maintenance. Michael was no maintenance, and he's going to be a great pick."
Below is a list of Georgetown draftees and players for the Knicks:
| Previous Draft Picks | Playing Experience |
| Jim Christy, 1964 | Patrick Ewing 1985-2000 |
| Patrick Ewing, 1985 | Bill Martin 1986-1987 |
| Michael Jackson, 1986 | David Wingate 1997-2000 |
| Mike Sweetney, 2003 | Othella Harrington 2000- |
Wesley Wilson (C'03) had an outside shot at a second round pick but was not selected. He will attempt to be signed as a free agent for training camps later this summer.
The overall list of the 51 Georgetown students that were drafted or played in the NBA is listed at this link. Additional links to draft coverage follow below:
| Post: ACC To Expand To 11 | 6/25/03 |
The Washington Post reports in its Wednesday edition that the Atlantic Coast Conference has voted to invite Miami and Virginia Tech as expansion targets, bringing the conference to 11 schools as early as the 2004-05 season. Syracuse and Boston College were not invited, according to the article, and are not part of future expansion planning, according to this link from ESPN.com.
A news conference may be scheduled today for the announcement.
The move from 9 to 11 schools would bring the ACC closer to a football playoff but one team short of doing so. Speculation will soon follow on who a 12th team could be. One target could be Notre Dame, who remains resistant to forsaking its independent status and football bowl money. In the meantime, the Big East is expected to significantly increase its exit fees, making a future move much more expensive for its member schools.
The two schools that expected--but did not receive a bid--appeared stunned.
A Syracuse spokesman would only reply that "At the moment, we consider this an unverified report," while BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo said that "All along, our goal was to be in the same league as Miami", according to the Boston Globe.
What next? The Hartford Courant reports that Louisville may be expecting a call from the Big East. "It's something we'd have to look at, if the opportunity does ever arise," said Louisville AD Tom Jurich. The Big East will need two more I-A schools to maintain a minimum of eight teams for Bowl Championship Series (BCS) status through at least 2005.
A link to ESPN.com discusses some of the many, many unanswered questions about the reported move. As for basketball, ESPN writes that "What does the ACC get in hoops? Not much. Virginia Tech has been one of the worst programs in the Big East...Adding Syracuse would have made a significant difference to the basketball power rating. Expanding to Virginia Tech and Miami does very little."
As for the lawsuit against the ACC, it is still ongoing, even with the peculiar situation that one of the litigants (Virginia Tech) could soon be a defendant. "Our legal cause is alive and well, indeed stronger than ever after these weeks of secret backroom dealings and the latest developments," said Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal said to the Hartford Courant.
This story just keeps getting stranger, doesn't it?
Additional links:
| Ronny Thompson Joins Arkansas Staff | 6/21/03 |
Ronny Thompson (C'92) has been announced as the new assistant coach at the University of Arkansas.
"My heart will always belong to Georgetown because I graduated from here, I played here and I coached here," Thompson said in this link to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "But I don’t look at this as a lateral move. I've got to better myself as a coach as part of furthering my professional career."
"I believe he will make our staff stronger and our fans will enjoy getting to know him,” said Arkansas coach Stan Heath at this link from Arkansas sports information. “He also brings with him a national recruiting base from the East Coast to the West Coast. He’s well-connected around the country.”
Thompson, 34, a four year letterman from 1988 through 1992, was an assistant at Oregon and Loyola (Md.) before returning to Georgetown in August 1998. He previously interviewed for head coaching positions at Ohio and West Virginia in 2001 and 2002. This past off-season, Thompson was a finalist for the head coaching position at Wagner.
Additional links to the coverage follow below:
| Sweetney Chooses NBA Draft | 6/19/03 |
On the last day available for college players had to declare or withdraw from the NBA Draft, a press release at GUHoyas.com confirmed that junior Mike Sweetney will forego his senior season at Georgetown and enter the draft.
Sweetney is only the third Georgetown player to leave school early to enter the draft: Allen Iverson (1994-96) was the #1 player selected in 1996, while his backcourt partner Victor Page (1995-97) left early a year later but was not drafted. Sweetney's lottery status appears strong by various media reports, and is expected to improve further following the announcement that 7-5 center Pavel Podzokline has returned to his Italian team and will not be in the draft.
Coach Esherick declined comment in the release, saying "at the request of Mike’s representation, [I've] agreed to reserve further comment until after the draft so as not to interfere with their strategies."
Sweetney's college career was nothing short of remarkable, even if the nation's press ignored his accomplishments and only offered him Honorable Mention All-America status this past season. His 776 points was the third most in a season in school history, and he finishes his Georgetown career seventh in career scoring, second in career average, and fifth in career rebounds. Here's a link to his career statistics.
Congratulations to Mike and his family for all he has accomplished, and all that awaits him. One piece of unfinished business, though--he needs to make plans to return to Georgetown next summer and work on finishing his degree.
| Georgetown 61st In NACDA Cup | 6/18/03 |
Georgetown University has placed 61st in the totals for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Directors Cup, formerly the Sears Cup, the unofficial review of success across all sports. The list for 2003 is posted in a release from the NACDA web site.
Points are calculated based on NCAA post-season play, so the men's and women's NIT bids do not count in the standings. The Big East rundown is as follows:
| 13. Notre Dame | 74. Syracuse |
| 45. Villanova | 78. Rutgers |
| 47. Miami | 82. West Virginia |
| 51. Connecticut | 100. Providence |
| 61. Georgetown | 110. Virginia Tech |
| 62. Boston College | 117.St. John's |
| 67. Pittsburgh | 150. Seton Hall |
Georgetown was sixth among schools playing football below the I-A level, trailing only Princeton, Harvard, Villanova, William & Mary, and Pennsylvania.
Of the top 30 schools in the rankings this year, all are at the I-A football level and 27 are state-sponsored universities. However, it was a private school, Stanford, that won the points total for a record ninth consecutive year, scoring top 10 finishes in ten different sports.
Here's a recap of Georgetown's finishes over the years per the NACDA web site:
| Year | Finish | Among Big East Schools |
| 1994 | 47th | 3rd |
| 1995 | 44th | 3rd |
| 1996 | 55th | 2nd |
| 1997 | 63rd | 5th |
| 1998 | 62nd | 6th |
| 1999 | 45th | 3rd |
| 2000 | 55th | 4th |
| 2001 | 42nd | 3rd |
| 2002 | 51st | 3rd |
| 2003 | 61st | 5th |
| Roy Hibbert Feature | 6/18/03 |
2004 verbal recruit Roy Hibbert is featured in an interview at this links to Hoya Report.com, a new recruiting-oriented web site. Check it out.
| Gaughan Wins Third Race At TMS | 6/7/03 |
1997 Georgetown graduate and three year basketball letterman Brendan Gaughan (B'97) won his third consecutive race at Ft. Worth's Texas Motor Speedway Friday night, fighting back from two pit crew delays to win the O'Reilly Auto Parts 400 truck race before 63,000 in attendance. Gaughan's 140.621 miles per hour set a new track record and was the fifth fastest finish in the truck series' history. Gaughan's story of basketball walk-on turned race driver has been a popular press story leading up to his races, but his driving ability is getting him attention, too.
Following the race, "We're going down to Luskey's boot barn in the stockyards," Gaughan told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. "I like the cowboy hats, but I want me some boots.'
| Bowman Selected As USA Junior Team Finalist | 6/2/03 |
Congratulations to sophomore forward Brandon Bowman (C'06), who has been selected as one of 16 finalists for the USA's 2003 Junior World Championships team, according to a press release at USA Basketball.com.
The finalists will compete in Dallas in late June before the 12 player team will be named and compete in the FIBA Men's Junior World Championship Tournament from July 10-20 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
This is the second Georgetown player in the last three years who will be competing for this team. Two years ago, Mike Sweetney (C'04) competed in this same tournament.
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