It’s hard to know what to think. Take a quick survey of Georgetown fans and reporters after Tuesday night’s 57-47 win over the Scarlet Knights, and you will get reactions that vary more than the Hoyas’ bench rotation. From elation and relief to frustration and disappointment, these wide-ranging responses say something significant about the state of Georgetown’s season: The Hoyas are on the brink of mediocrity.

Such an adjective has been scarce in these parts during the past three years of AP rankings and high-seed predictions, but mediocre teams drop four straight conference games. Mediocre teams hand squads like West Virginia a 17-point win at home. Mediocre teams, and usually just the bad ones, lose to Seton Hall.

ost importantly, mediocre teams are relieved, even happy, after beating a team at home that was without a conference win and had lost 10 games in a row. A team that was in the bottom four of the Big East in 10 of the 19 major statistical categories – a team like Rutgers.

Despite the Knights’ lowly numbers, the Hoyas were still happy with the win. Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III, usually somewhat dour even after a good game, exhaled loudly into the microphone at his post game press conference and was visibly relieved to get one in the win column.

When asked about Rutgers keeping it close at the end, Thompson apologized for his team saying, “No one has run away from them. They have a knack. . Teams have gotten up, and they’ve clawed back in it.” Not quite the perfectionism we have come to expect.

Questioned about his happiness over the victory, Thompson replied, “It feels like a month without winning a game, I don’t know how long it’s been. . You win, so it feels good.”

Forget the 6-for-13 shooting from beyond the arc by the team with the Big East’s 15th-ranked three-point field goal percentage or the nine second-half turnovers against the conference’s worst turnover margin defense. It feels good to get a win for a change, and so Thompson is happy.

Now, that isn’t to say he ignored the faults. Thompson criticized his team’s decision-making in the second half and admitted, “We made some pretty bad mistakes, I think.” But put that game in the middle of the season a year ago, or even a month ago, and I can guarantee Thompson wouldn’t say he was going to sleep easier that night as he did on Tuesday.

Of course, it’s asking a lot to expect a ball club that hasn’t won in almost three weeks to treat a conference win like another day at the office, but that is what we have come to expect from the Hoyas over the past three years. After a nine-point win over Jacksonville in the season opener, Thompson called his team’s rebounding “unacceptable,” and his post game mood was far from what we saw on Tuesday. That is why some fans reacted to Tuesday’s game with disappointment, even with the losing streak broken.

Perhaps Thompson saw more out of the Hoyas than their more-disappointed fans did. He saw his team play hard defense for almost the entire game, and he saw Henry Sims and Nikita Mescheriakov, whom he praised for their hustle plays, find a way they might be able to contribute on a nightly basis. Finally, he saw Jessie Sapp find his shot, and when Thompson said, “We need Sapp to be Sapp,” Thompson’s father let out a deep-voiced

“Yeah .” of approval that made the senior guard smile and nod.

While those who were disappointed by Tuesday’s showing saw a less-than-dominating performance against a team without much to offer, maybe Thompson’s apparent confidence that things are on the rise comes from watching the Hoyas play way above mediocre basketball at times this season and hoping that there is more of that to come.

A win on Saturday against Cincinnati would be another great way to build a late-season resurgence, and if Thompson is critical and terse after the game, we can all be relieved that the team worthy of high expectations is back. On the other hand, if the Hoyas lose to the Bearcats or just struggle to put them away, it might be time to start researching NIT tickets and reading recruiting predictions for 2010.

It’s certainly hard to be pessimistic when Thompson seems upbeat, but no matter how you reacted on Tuesday, only time will tell if the ugly win was just a brief flirtation with mediocrity or merely a cushion that softened the Hoyas’ fall from the top of the Big East to the oh-so-average middle.

Jamie Leader is a senior in the College and can be reached at leaderthehoya.com. He hosts the sports radio show “Tournament Edition” on Georgetown Radio every Monday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. FOLLOW THE LEADER appears every other Friday in HOYA SPORTS.

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