This used to be annual event.
In the mid 1980s, a trip to the Final Four was as much a Hilltop rite of spring as blooming cherry blossoms and skipping classes on Friday. Thanks to the likes of Thompson, Ewing, Floyd and Williams, Georgetown reached an astounding three Final Fours in four years.
However, over the 100-year history of Hoya hoops, the appearances at the Final Four have come during peak periods surrounded by mediocre valleys.
Though many remember the Hoya Paranoia of the ’80s, when Georgetown reached the Final Four in 1982, 1984 and 1985, few ever knew the Hoyas made a trip to Madison Square Garden for the fifth-ever NCAA Final Four in 1943. Sure, the field was only eight teams and Georgetown only needed to beat New York University and DePaul to reach the title game, but it was a Final Four nonetheless. The Hoyas lost the title game, 46-34, to the Wyoming Cowboys. With young talent in abundance, Georgetown looked to be at the top of the college basketball mountain.
Much to the dismay of the Hoya faithful, it would be another 32 years before Georgetown would play an NCAA tournament game, 37 before they would win in the Big Dance and 39 before the Blue and Gray would be back to college basketball’s highest heights – the Final Four.
As freshman Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) led Georgetown back to the Final Four and the national championship game, it would be another freshman that stole the show, shutting the door on the Hoyas’ title hopes again. North Carolina’s Michael Jordan hit a jumper with 17 seconds remaining to give his Tar Heels a 63-62 lead.
While most sports fans remember the 1982 title game for the first game-winner in a long line of late-game heroics by Jordan, Georgetown fans will forever remember Freddie Brown’s (CAS ’84) errant pass to Carolina’s James Worthy as the Hoyas were setting up a potential game-winner of their own. Immediately after the game, Head Coach John Thompson embraced Brown after the sophomore guard inexplicably threw the ball to an opponent standing nowhere near a Georgetown player.
Two years later, Thompson would hug Brown under much happier circumstances. Georgetown had just beaten Hakeem Olajuwon’s “Phi Slamma Jamma” University of Houston for the Hoyas’ first national championship.
Hampered by four fouls, Brown recorded only four points and four assists in the affair, but his teammates picked up the slack. Ewing scored 10 points and collected nine rebounds, while forwards Reggie Williams (CAS ’87) and Dave Wingate (CAS ’86) posted 19 and 16 points, respectively. Five Hoyas finished in double figures as Georgetown won 85-76 on April 2, the same date set for this year’s championship game.
But Thompson’s squad would not have been in the title game in ’84 had their defense not led a furious comeback two nights prior against Kentucky. Down 27-15 late in the first half, the Hoyas’ defense proceeded to hold the Wildcats without a field goal for an unprecedented 13 minutes. When Kentucky scored its next basket, halfway through the second half, Georgetown was ahead 34-31. The Hoyas extended the lead to 45-31 and went on to win, 53-40.
After allowing 29 points on 10-of-20 shooting in the first half, Georgetown’s staunch defense held Kentucky to 11 second-half points on 3-of-33 shooting from the field.
Ewing was named the most outstanding player of the tournament, and all was right on the Hilltop as the championship banner was raised in McDonough Gymnasium, letting everyone know that Georgetown had finally reached the pinnacle of college basketball.
As memorable as the ’84 championship game was for the Hoyas, the 1985 title was equally unforgettable but for different reasons.
The Final Four featured three Big East teams, and after Georgetown beat the West region champion and fellow top-seed St. John’s to reach the title game, the Hoyas looked poised to beat eighth-seeded Villanova for their second straight title.
The Wildcats were the lowest-seeded team to reach the final game and, in what is widely considered one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history, became the lowest-seeded team to win a title. Villanova missed only six field goals in the entire game and shot an other-worldly 78.6 percent from the field to upset the heavily favored Georgetown, 66-64.
Although the Hoyas attempted 25 more shots than the Wildcats and shot an above-average 54.7 percent from the field, the disparity in free throws was too much for the Blue and Gray to overcome. Villanova was 22-of-27 from the line while Georgetown was a measly 5-of-8. Ewing, an all-American center, did not reach the charity stripe once.
With Ewing’s graduation, the deepest run the Hoyas could muster in the rest of the ’80s was to the Elite Eight, a feat they accomplished twice. Even with the addition of future-NBA all-Star centers Alonzo Mourning (COL ’92) and Dikembe utombo (FLL ’91), they could not get back to the Final Four and only made it to the Elite Eight in the 1988-89 season. In the mid-’90s Allen Iverson was not the “Answer,” and could not lead Georgetown past the round of eight.
While Elite would be good for most teams, Georgetown yearned for the prestige that came with playing on the final weekend of the college basketball season. After suffering through the NIT-plagued era of Head Coach Craig Esherick, the Hoyas have seen a quick rise to prominence in John Thompson III’s three seasons. Thompson has taken the Hoyas to their fifth Final Four in the program’s 100-year history.
So, while many Georgetown fans have long since forgotten Coach Elmer Ripley and star center John Mahnken of the ’43 Final Four and none can ever forget Thompson and Ewing of the ’80s and JTIII and Green of the 2007 Final Four, few can deny that the hoopsters from the Hilltop belong atop college basketball’s highest peak.
– Hoya Staff Writer Bailey Heaps contributed to this article.
