With Georgetown’s men’s basketball season set to kick off in less than three weeks, many questions about this year’s Hoyas squad remain unanswered. How will Georgetown fare without a dominant center after five exceptional years of Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe? Which of the incoming freshmen will be ready to make an immediate impact? And after two years of over-reliance on the starters, will the Blue and Gray have a bench they can trust to play significant minutes?

We won’t know the answers to these questions until several weeks, if not months, into the season, but there is one question that will be answered on Nov. 12 at Old Dominion. Who will be in the starting lineup on opening night?

This Hoya is hoping to see Chris Wright, Austin Freeman, Jason Clark and Hollis Thompson all take the court together when the Hoyas kick off their season. Furthermore, I would like to see the four of them play significant minutes together. A four-guard lineup (Thompson may be listed as a forward, but don’t let that fool you) will be a radical change from years past, but it seems to present Georgetown with its best option on the court.

There were six players who averaged more than 13 minutes per game for Georgetown last year, and one of them is now wearing a Detroit Pistons uniform. The five remaining players (Wright, Freeman, Clark, Thompson and Julian Vaughn) have the most experience and have all proven themselves over the course of a season. There’s no reason not to trust those five to carry the team until other players can step up. The most important thing about picking a lineup is putting the players who give your team the best chance to win on the court.

The Hoyas’ four guards would completely change the dynamic of the game. First, defending Georgetown would become a nightmare. Zone defense won’t work since the Hoyas have outstanding perimeter shooting, with Freeman, Clark and Thompson all converting over 42 percent of their three-point attempts last season.

Man-to-man defense is also problematic, since Freeman and Thompson will likely be quicker than the opposing team’s forwards, which will allow them to get to the hole often. Second, using four guards paradoxically addresses Georgetown’s problems on the interior. Big East rivals like Syracuse and Louisville will likely have a talent advantage down low, but the Hoyas can counter that by making the advantage irrelevant.

By playing an up-tempo style, taking chances to force turnovers and pressing the other team, Georgetown can prevent opposing big men from utilizing their size advantage in a half-court game. And the easiest way to get those big men in foul trouble is to force them to guard quicker players like Freeman and Thompson.

In addition, Georgetown has the ideal personnel to run this system. At 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, Freeman has the size and strength to play post defense against bigger players. Clark is only 6-foot-2, but has the wingspan of a player who is 6-foot-7, which means he will be able to put a hand in the face of taller perimeter players. Thompson is actually 6-foot-7, so he has a chance to hold his own against power forwards. Off the bench, sophomore Vee Sanford and freshman Markel Starks can rotate in and contribute valuable minutes while allowing the Hoyas to maintain a frenetic pace.

Many basketball traditionalists would scoff at this entire discussion. In their eyes, you need a point guard, two wing players and two interior big men in the game at all times. But recent years have shown us that there are other ways to win.

In 2005, Illinois made it all the way to the NCAA title game with a lineup that featured three guards in Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head and undersized forward Roger Powell. One year later, Villanova rode its four guard quartet of Kyle Lowry, Mike Nardi, Allan Ray and Randy Foye to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and the Sweet 16, where they lost to eventual national champion Florida. And just this summer, Team USA won the gold medal in the FIBA World Championships with a dearth of talent on the interior. At one point in the championship game against Turkey, Coach K trotted out a lineup of NBA point guards Russell Westbrook and Stephen Curry, shooting guard Eric Gordon and small forwards Rudy Gay and Kevin Durant. And that was against a Turkish team that featured three players over 6-foot-10 in its starting lineup alone.

The game of basketball has changed. If the Hoyas embrace this change by playing to their strengths and using four guards early and often, Georgetown could reassert itself as the “Beast of the Big East”- only a smaller, quicker one than in years past.

Parimal Garg is a senior in the College. TAKING THE COURT appears every third issue of HOYA SPORTS.