Georgetown might be able to boast one of the Big East’s top two men’s basketball teams, Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green are both top-rated at their respective positions (center and power forward), and as much as many Hoya fans hate to admit it, Syracuse is a team once again on the rise. Die-hard Georgetown fans got first-hand confirmation of these facts Tuesday night in McShain Lounge when ESPN.com Senior Writer Pat Forde discussed both the upcoming basketball season and his experiences in journalism with students.
Forde began the evening with a veritable call to arms to Hoya fans to step up their support for the Blue and Grey, saying that the students he has seen at Louisville and Kentucky embody a sense of fandom rivaled by few institutions in college basketball.
In his discussion of the upcoming season, Forde did not to deviate from most preseason polls, which place Georgetown among the nation’s top 10 teams.
Forde, who got his start at the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, spoke favorably of Green, Hibbert and freshman forward Vernon Macklin and pointed to guard-play as the Hoyas’ big question mark. He went on to say that Georgetown should contend with Pittsburgh for Big East supremacy, and complimented junior guard Jon Wallace.
Later in the event, he tabbed Syracuse as the conference’s likely-third place finisher.
Elsewhere in America, Forde predicted that Florida, the defending national champions who have an impressive stable of big men returning, would be the favorites to repeat last season’s success.
He also expects strong performances from North Carolina behind sophomore forward Tyler Hansbrough and a talented crop of freshmen, and Ohio State with its freshman phenomenon Greg Oden. Forde said that Ohio State’s chances this year rest on Oden, the most talented defensive center he said he has seen since Patrick Ewing’s (CAS ’85) early days on the Hilltop.
Forde tabs Green as a likely candidate for the Big East Player of the Year award and says that Hibbert and Pittsburgh senior center Aaron Gray are “co-No. 1s” as far as league centers are concerned.
Mixed in with insightful analysis were tales of Forde’s nearly 20 years as a sports journalist, including a spat with longtime Indiana University Head Coach and current Texas Tech Head Coach Bobby Knight and a nearly two-decade friendship with Louisville Coach Rick Pitino.
Forde also spoke about what it takes to be a journalist, emphasizing that a love of writing is far more important than a love of sports. He told of the pitfalls of writing on a tight deadline, telling listeners of how he began writing a recap of the 1992 East Regional Championship between Duke and Kentucky and was forced to revise his work up to four times until Duke’s Christian Laettner hit his famous game-winner. Forde also discussed coverage of the 1996 Olympics and Muhammed Ali’s lighting of the flame, saying that having to cover the event for Ali’s hometown paper was particularly challenging.
Forde spent over 30 minutes taking questions from the fans, some about the current Hoyas, others about the national landscape of college basketball or his involvement with ESPN.
The event was sponsored by the Lecture Fund.