A new season of Georgetown basketball begins tonight.

Gone to Detroit is Greg Monroe. “97-83 Ohio” has faded from the rearview mirror. The ups and downs of 2009-2010 have been wiped away, and the Hoyas’ slate is clean.

“I’m excited about this year. I like our combination of experience, along with the youth,” Head Coach John Thompson III said. “Meaning the freshmen and also meaning our sophomore class that I think had a very good offseason and is very improved. We’re just ready to get going.”

Led by the veteran backcourt trio of seniors Austin Freeman and Chris Wright and junior Jason Clark, the Hoyas will tip off their season on the road for the second time in as many years.

“We’re just going to play, just going to have fun,” Wright said of the Georgetown backcourt, which will be the focus of opposing defenses all season. “We’re just going to go out there and do what we know we’re capable of. Nobody’s going to play outside of their roles or anything. Just go out there and execute, and let the rest handle itself. Make shots, and that’s it.”

Waiting for the Hoyas at the Ted Constant Center in Norfolk, Va., tonight is Old Dominion, the preseason favorite in the Colonial Athletic Association that has won two of its last three against Georgetown and owns a 23-game home winning streak – the fourth-longest active streak in the country.

“I’m not really into streaks,” Old Dominion Head Coach Blaine Taylor told The Virginian-Pilot. “I am proud of the fact we have a good home court. The kids enjoy playing there, the fans enjoy watching there. We have a good synergy, a shared experience, that makes it a pretty tough place to play.”

The defending champions of the CAA, the 11th-seeded Monarchs knocked off Notre Dame in the first round of the 2010 NCAA tournament. Earlier last season, ODU trekked up to Washington, D.C., during the first of two historic snowstorms and defeated the Hoyas 61-57 at McDonough Arena – the same venue where, in 2006, the Monarchs shut down eventual All-American forward Jeff Green and notched a 75-62 win over Final Four-bound Georgetown.

The Hoyas’ season-opening trip to Old Dominion also opens another grueling nonconference schedule that includes the Charleston Classic, trips to Missouri, Temple and Memphis and a home date with Utah State.

“Our schedule is extremely difficult. [We’ve] possibly bit off more than we can chew, but we’ll see,” Thompson said. “I know that this team has to grow, and I know that this team is going to be tested early, and hopefully we can have success early while we are growing. Now that being said, I would not have put together the schedule that we did if I wasn’t confident that we can figure it out on the fly.”

An experienced team in its own right, Georgetown’s first test will be against a 13-man Old Dominion squad that includes eight juniors and seniors. Like the Hoyas, the Monarchs return four starters from a season ago – one junior (swingman Kent Bazemore) and three seniors (forward Frank Hassell and guards Darius James and Ben Finney).

Finney and Hassell were major thorns in Georgetown’s side in last year’s contest, with Finney putting up 13 points, six rebounds and five assists and Hassell scoring 10 and grabbing seven rebounds. The Monarchs victimized the sluggish Hoyas from deep, going 7-of-16 from beyond the arc, and despite only getting to the free-throw line five times all game, ODU took advantage of 18 Georgetown turnovers en route to victory.

“I’m excited for it, a lot of early tests starting with ODU,” junior forward Henry Sims said. Sims turned the ball over twice in just four minutes against the Monarchs last season. “The first game of the season going up there, [we’ve] got some business to handle up there. It’s a test.”

As for the Hoyas, Thompson is expected to open the season with Freeman, Wright and Clark in the backcourt and senior forward Julian Vaughn down low, leaving one starting spot in question. But whether the fifth starter turns out to be sophomore swingman Hollis Thompson, sophomore forward Jerrelle Benimon or another player, Thompson is more concerned with the five who finish the game than with the five who start it.

“I don’t think [the starting lineup]’s going to matter,” Thompson said. “I think with each game and with the different strengths among the personnel we have, the best group for game A may not be the best group for game B. . Do I care who’s going to start? No. And it may be a different group that finishes every game.”

The Monarchs played a lot of 2-3 matchup zone at McDonough last season, daring the Hoyas to make jumpshots and putting themselves in position to attack the defensive glass and contain Monroe. That strategy ultimately paid off, as Georgetown went 5-of-17 from three and ODU matched the Hoyas board for board. With an elite backcourt instead of a Monroe-like presence to worry about this time around, the Monarchs may choose to play a 3-2 zone or at least extend their defense on the perimeter to force Vaughn and the Georgetown big men to beat them.But even with the attention being paid to Freeman, Wright and Clark – who of course need to make shots for Georgetown to win – the Hoyas have the potential to find some offensive balance.

“We have a whole new group here, and we have to figure it out,” Thompson said. “We have to figure out how this group is going to win. It’s going to be much different. It’s no secret that our backcourt is the heart and soul of what we’re going to do this year. But at the same time, even having lost Greg, I think we have more depth up front.”

The Hoyas last dropped the first game of a season in 2004 – Thompson’s first year at the helm – to Temple. Since then, Thompson’s teams have begun their respective years with wins over Navy, Hartford, William and Mary, Jacksonville and Tulane. Playing about three hours south of D.C. tonight in a hostile environment against a team that knows how to beat them, the Hoyas may be facing their most difficult season-opening challenge of the second Thompson era.

Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.

Follow the Hoyas’ season opener online at blogs.thehoya.com/paranoia as Dave Finn live blogs the game from the Constant Center.”