If you ask Markel Starks, there’s something missing in McDonough Arena.
It’s not something picked off the typical laundry list of complaints about the 52-year-old gymnasium nestled in the southwest corner of campus. The senior point guard isn’t talking about the lack of a proper practice facility, or even about the tiny seating area that forces the Hoyas to play home games at Verizon Center. No, Starks is looking for a simple change in decor.
“I’m sick of looking up at those banners,” he said before a mid-October practice session while gesturing at the gym’s south wall, where the youngest of four NCAA Final Four banners dates back to 2007. “Every day when I come in here, I look up, and there’s nothing there. For me, as a leader of this team, that’s heartbreaking.”
Heartbreak was the theme of March basketball on the Hilltop long before Starks arrived here from Georgetown Prep, but the last three years’ effect on the senior is palpable. He’s as charismatic as ever while holding court for the press, but after three years of great expectations and early exits, the grins are smaller and the jokes fewer and farther between. Nowadays, he’ll even call out himself — and his team — for “lack of mental toughness” late in the season.
“I think the lack of mental toughness is somewhat about dedication,” Starks said. “You can’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘I don’t want to play basketball.’ It can’t be a day-in, day-out type of thing. … Everybody has to be willing to make sacrifices for the betterment of the team.”
Much of the responsibility for setting this tone will fall on Starks, both the starting point guard and presumptive top scoring option. But on the most experienced squad Georgetown has seen in years, Starks will be sharing the mantle of senior leadership.
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Senior forward Nate Lubick has earned quite the collection of cliche titles among reporters and fans. As a freshman with a penchant for thunderous dunks, he was an “energy guy.” As a sophomore who struggled to find his role in the system, he was an “intangibles guy.” As a junior who played big minutes and racked up plenty of rebounds, assists and charges, he was a “glue guy.”
There’s one title, however, that has remained year after year: “coach’s son.”
Whether this is due to Lubick’s high basketball IQ, his status as an actual coach’s son or simply a lack of creativity on announcers’ parts is up for debate. It’s certain, however, that his impressive court awareness has earned him high regard in Thompson’s office. In three years here, the 6-foot-8 Massachusetts native has started more games than any other active player.
Perhaps even more than Starks, Lubick will be charged with ensuring this season doesn’t follow the tired old path to March disappointment. Like Starks, he’s taking the job seriously.
“I don’t think I or Markel will completely get over [last season’s ending] until we set foot on the court,”Lubick said.
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Because Lubick and Starks have been rotation players for so long, it’s easy to forget that their status as the core of the Class of 2014 wasn’t always obvious. As recently as the spring of 2012, the future of the two then-sophomores looked uncertain.
After a promising freshman campaign, Lubick appeared poised to evolve from a raw big man to a crucial cog in the offense. Georgetown was returning no proven post players and featured only three upperclassmen, seemingly setting the stage for the skilled sophomore to break out.
Instead, Lubick found himself battling for court time with a couple of upstart freshman forwards named Otto Porter and Greg Whittington. He started every night, but the freshmen slowly ate away at his minutes as Thompson gravitated toward a longer, quicker lineup. In Georgetown’s double-overtime loss to Cincinnati in the Big East tournament semifinal, Lubick was the only starter to play fewer than 45 minutes. Far fewer, in fact — he played just six.
Starks, meanwhile, was facing more dramatic issues. Near the end of an embarrassing loss at Seton Hall in February, Thompson and his point man got into a heated argument courtside. Starks was benched for the next game.
Thompson, when asked for his reasoning behind the benching, said only, “I just wanted to start [Porter] and not play Starks.” But deeper issues were evident, as Starks lost his starting spot for the remainder of the season.
The Hoyas continued to impress even their most ardent doubters en route to a 24-9 record and No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. But March would end prematurely, this time with a 66-63 loss to North Carolina State in the Round of 32, a game in which neither Starks nor Lubick made any major contributions.
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On its own, the 2012 graduation of Jason Clark and Henry Sims would’ve sparked Starks and Lubick to take on more responsibility. But another decision made their growth a necessity.
Would-be senior Hollis Thompson, the team’s second-leading scorer in 2011-12, declared for the NBA Draft soon after Georgetown’s tournament loss. Suddenly, two juniors — neither of whom had ever approached a double-figure scoring average — were called on to become the elder statesmen of a team featuring 10 underclassmen.
Gulp.
Starks and Lubick trained all summer to grow into their new roles. Lubick entered training camp noticeably slimmer, and Starks studied extensively in an effort to become the floor general the Hoyas needed.
“He worked extremely hard. If you look at him, you can see his body’s changed,” Thompson said ofLubick last fall.
“I’ve worked on my game, I’ve worked on my body, I’ve studied a lot of film, I’ve watched other players, I’ve watched myself, [and] I’ve studied NBA players,” Starks said. “I’ve done my homework, so to say.”
The basketball establishment didn’t buy their assurances. Despite near-universal recognition of Porter as a star, few analysts and coaches picked the Hoyas as serious contenders for the Big East title, let alone an NCAA tournament run. Even when analysts did turn an eye to Georgetown, the two de facto seniors were largely forgotten in the hype around Porter.
That wouldn’t last long.
In the nationally televised Legends Classic, Starks racked up 43 points on 57 percent shooting over two games against No. 11 UCLA (a win) and No. 1 Indiana (an overtime loss).
“[Starks] really hurt us,” UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland said after the game. “Any time we failed to trail him, he exploited it.”
Starks’ lights-out performance in Brooklyn solidified his position as the Hoyas’ No. 2 scorer. He showed a flair for the dramatic throughout the season, consistently making clutch plays and coming up big in high-profile games.
Lubick’s improvement was less obvious to the casual fan but no less important to the team’s fortunes. His low-post play was noticeably smoother, his passing as sharp as ever and his defensive rotations nearly flawless.
The longtime role player even made a few forays into uncharted territory: double-digit scoring.
After one such performance — 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists on 80 percent shooting in a win over St. John’s — Thompson indicated that big plays had become the norm for his longest-tenured starter.
“Nate gave us quality stats, not quantity stats,” he said. “When we need something done, he gets a rebound, makes an assist, gets a basket. He’s been doing that consistently, and tonight was no exception.”
Starks and Lubick weren’t the only ones to step into important roles within Porter’s supporting cast. Less-experienced then-juniors like center Moses Ayegba and forward Aaron Bowen came through in several big games, and the underclassmen showed resolve beyond their years. But on the rare occasion when either of the two veterans was off his game or unable to play, his value was thrown into stark relief — especially near the end of the season, when Porter finally began showing signs of fatigue.
No game illustrated this better — or more painfully — than Georgetown’s first-round NCAA tournament game against Florida Gulf Coast.
Starks was seemingly the only Hoya with an eye on the basket that night in Philadelphia. Or he was, until two early fouls sent him to the bench just as the Eagles were hitting their stride. The absence of their veteran point guard, combined with an above-the-rim assault from FGCU then-junior forward Chase Fieler — a nightmare matchup for Lubick — had Georgetown staring down the barrel of yet another early exit.
Starks rallied the Hoyas with a series of three-pointers late in the second half, but the damage was done: Once again, Georgetown found itself on the wrong side of the tournament’s biggest upset.
“We were too patient,” Starks said last month when asked to reflect on the loss. “We dug ourselves in a hole we couldn’t get out of.”
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A lot has changed since the Hoyas left Philadelphia.
Georgetown is still playing in the Big East, but it’s a whole new conference. Gone are Syracuse, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Louisville, replaced by Creighton, Butler and Xavier. Starks doesn’t have to face the Cardinals’ dynamic, high-scoring guard Russ Smith anymore; Lubick has a new challenge in another coach’s son, Bluejays senior forward Doug McDermott.
They’ll have to do it all without Porter, who now suits up for the NBA’s Washington Wizards, or Whittington, who tore his ACL over the summer. They’ll have the added services of Josh Smith, a junior center transfer from UCLA built like former Hoya star Mike Sweetney.
All that said, this year somehow features the most continuity Starks and Lubick have ever seen.
“In years past, we’ve been really young. That’s not the case this year,” Lubick said. “We’re a veteran team, and our younger guys are guys that are experienced.”
Indeed, the duo is surrounded by more experience than any Georgetown seniors in recent memory. But even as the players and coaches harp on how balanced the team is — how they’ll score and win “as a unit,” how everyone will contribute — no one doubts who really runs this show.
For the Hoyas to match the regular-season success of the last three years, Starks will need to live up to his preseason all-Big East honors and learn to balance No. 1 scorer duties with his role as a point guard.
“Markel and I are at a point where he knows exactly what I want — not only what I need of him, but what I need him to help everyone else do,” Thompson said.
As for Lubick, the coaching staff has high expectations for a “glue guy” who’s never averaged more than 7.1 points per game.
“We’re going to depend on Nate for a lot more scoring punch on the block,” Thompson said. “I think you’re going to see Nate as an even better player this year than in the previous three years.”
He’s done his part to prepare for the job.
“I’m in the best shape I’ve been in in a long time. … I really didn’t lose weight, I’m just in really good shape,” Lubick said. “I’ve worked on my shot a little bit, being able to score in the post. I’ve got to be somebody who you can throw it down to — somebody who can score.”
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Starks and Lubick begin their final campaign when the Hoyas open, for the second straight season, on a faraway military base. They’ve been the only constants in a tumultuous period on the Hilltop: As teammates have fallen to injury, stars have left early and the conference’s landscape has shifted, Starks and Lubick remain fixtures on the court. This year, they move from supporting roles squarely into the spotlight, where they’ll have one last chance to secure a spot on McDonough’s wall of banners.
Of course, most factors that will determine that result lie outside their control. But Starks and Lubick are approaching this year with the deadly focus only two weary seniors could possess, driven by the still-fresh memories of disappointments past and the notion that the last act of their college careers might follow the same sad, tired narrative.
“We still have a sour taste in our mouths,” Lubick said.
“We just have to get out of this hole,” Starks added.
The stage is set. Now let’s see if they can write a twist ending.
