Georgetown Basketball, Back Where It Belongs

By Archives • March 23, 2001

Ruthie Braunstein/The Hoya As he did all season, junior guard Kevin Braswell led GU last night. For Georgetown’s men’s basketball team, the lasting images from the 2000-01 season will not come from the season-ending loss to Maryland on Thursday night. Instead they will consist of the Georgetown bench piling on senior Nathaniel Burton as his buzzer-beating layup fell through the nylon against Arkansas in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament; the swarm of students mobbing the floorboards of MCI Center following Georgetown’s victory over No. 12 ranked Syracuse; the pictures of confidence as the Hoyas opened the season with 16 consecutive victories and freshman Mike Sweetney turning into a star in the low post. These are the images that will be remembered of this season. These are the images of the reborn Georgetown basketball program.

Georgetown opened its schedule with 16 straight wins before finally falling to Pittsburgh on Jan. 20. Over the course of the unbeaten streak Georgetown won Hawaii Pacific Thanksgiving Classic as it cruised by Central Florida, College of Charleston and innesota to clinch the title.

The streak also included four wins over Big East opponents West Virginia, Virginia Tech and then-top 25 ranked Seton Hall twice. In those two victories against Seton Hall Georgetown played the best basketball of its season. The Hoyas were firing on all cylinders with junior Kevin Braswell making good decisions at the point. Senior Anthony Perry returned to his former ways, shooting well from the perimeter and giving the Hoyas a solid outside threat. And in the low post a new star was being born by the name of Mike Sweetney.

The 6-foot-8 freshman established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the low post, leading the Hoyas in both scoring and rebounding on the season. Sweetney proved to be a more than adequate replacement for Lee Scruggs who spent the first half of the season on the sidelines because of academic ineligibility. When Scruggs returned after the Howard game he found his starting position at power forward taken away by the sensational new edition and spent the remainder of the season playing off of the bench for the Hoyas, but still contributed an average of 7.3 points per game.

With a set starting five of Boumtje-Boumtje, Sweetney, Braswell, freshman forward Gerald Riley and sophomore guard Demetrius Hunter, the Hoyas plunged ahead into the conference play exclusive portion of their schedule with a record of 17-1.

Georgetown hit two stumbling blocks, dropping consecutive games to Notre Dame at home and Syracuse at the Carrier Dome before regaining their momentum with two wins over West Virginia at MCI Center and on the road at Pittsburgh. But again, just when Georgetown looked ready to return to national prominence the Hoyas suffered two more setbacks – a 103-79 loss to Providence and a 59-56 loss to Villanova.

Georgetown then split two games, a three point win over Rutgers and a three-point loss to St. John’s.

From there, however, Georgetown put together its most impressive stretch of the season beginning with a 72-61 victory over rival Syracuse. It was a special ending for the players as well as the students, who rushed the floor in celebration after the final buzzer. It was only the second time Georgetown students had ever rushed the court at MCI Center. Georgetown built off that win and buried Rutgers 74-58 on Senior Day at MCI Center. The Hoyas continued their success with a victory over Big East-West Division Champions Notre Dame in South Bend to clinch second place in the division and a bye in the first round of the Big East Tournament.

With hopes running high, Georgetown swept into the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. The stay was short lived, however, as Georgetown suffered the most embarrassing loss of the season, falling by a score of 58-40 to Seton Hall, with the Hoyas scoring only 14 points in the second half, a Big East Tournament low.

That loss threw everything into uncertainty. Had the Georgetown program really rebuilt itself? Or, was this the same inconsistent program that had represented the Hilltop for the past four years? And once they received a No. 10 seed in the West, the Hoyas had something to prove.

They proved it. And how.

Two wins and a Sweet 16 appearance later, Georgetown has shown that it has returned to national prominence. A gritty win against Arkansas in the first round and a thorough beating of 15th-seeded Hampton in the second round pitted Georgetown against Maryland, a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and one of the top programs in the nation. The loss to Maryland was not indicative of the season for the Hoyas, but the game did show that Georgetown was ready to move back into the role of a national contender. The game showed that the Hoyas could compete against some of the nation’s best and while this season did end in the Sweet 16, Georgetown showed a glimpse of the good things to come from the Georgetown basketball program. The future should be bright indeed.