Ever since the final buzzer sounded after the 97-83 loss to Ohio last March, there has been speculation about just how good the Hoyas will be in 2010-2011. Now, less than a month before the season tips off, there are some numbers and preseason accolades to match up with the expectations.

On Wednesday, Big East head coaches and select players gathered at Madison Square Garden in New York for the league’s annual media day. Georgetown was selected by the coaches to finish fourth in the conference, senior guard Austin Freeman was named the Big East preseason player of the year, and senior guard Chris Wright made the preseason all-Big East second team.

Additionally, the first ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll of the year has the Hoyas ranked 21st in the country.

“Where you are picked is irrelevant,” Head Coach John Thompson III said to reporters during media day. “With the quality of the teams in this room, and the players in this room, and the coaches in this room, at the end of the year, that order could be completely jumbled up and no one would be surprised.”

Freeman is the fourth player in program history to receive preseason player of the year honors, joining the likes of Roy Hibbert, Alonzo Mourning and Patrick Ewing. A season ago, he averaged 16.5 points per game, but that number jumped to 19.5 a contest during Big East play. The 6-foot-3 guard, who struggled from deep as a sophomore, led the league in three-point shooting at 52.5 percent as a junior a season ago.

“It’s an honor, but it also means that I’m going to have to be more focused this year because people are going to be coming after me,” Freeman said. “It’s special to be mentioned with those guys because we all know they were really great players.”

Pittsburgh was tabbed as the favorite to win the Big East, followed by Villanova and Syracuse, both of which also received first-place votes. St. John’s, a popular sleeper pick to make a huge jump into the top half of the conference, also received one first-place vote – from Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino.

Thompson will lean on Freeman, who made the 2009-2010 all-Big East second team, and Wright this season to carry a major offensive load with the absence of a go-to big man. Add to the mix junior guard Jason Clark and the Hoyas have one of the most talented and experienced backcourts in the nation, which is a departure from Georgetown’s identity as “Big Man U.”

Still, even with Greg Monroe gone to the NBA, senior forward Julian Vaughn headlines what has the potential to be the deepest frontcourt Thompson has had during his career on the Hilltop. That, of course, depends on what junior center Henry Sims can bring to the paint as well as how quickly freshman big men Nate Lubick and Moses Ayegba come along.

The Hoyas tip off their 2010-2011 schedule on Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. on the road in Norfolk, Va., to take on Old Dominion, which beat Georgetown at McDonough Arena for the second time in four years last season.