LACK OF LEADERSHIP UNRAVELS HOYAS

February 11, 2009


While the Irish slide has shocked many, Georgetown is another team falling apart, but they have seemed to fall apart from within as 'dysfunctional' could be a term used in describing the Hoyas in the last month.

The young team has not seen it's veterans pick up the leadership duties and Finding a Leading Reason (Washington Times) for their slide seems to be pointed in direction of senior Jesse Sapp and junior DaJuan Summers.

The season began to unravel in the second half of their loss to Duke as the Hoyas collapsed emotionally. Summers missed crucial free throws and Sapp was on the bench following a halftime spat with sophomore point guard Chris Wright. In a loss to Seton Hall the following weekend, Sapp and Summers launched consecutive late game three's seemingly defying the instructions of John Thompson III to pound the ball inside to freshman Greg Monroe.

Sapp sat the entire second half of their latest loss, an OT decision at home to Cincinnati because of what Thompson dubbed a "coach's decision" after the senior guard apparently lost his cool concerning Thompson's wholesale, disciplinary first-half substitutions.

Bottom line...leadership and experience mean so much. Look at the top of the conference with Connecticut having senior guards AJ Price and Craig Austrie along with Jeff Adrien and juniors Jerome Dyson, Hasheem Thabeet and Stanley Robinson, Pittsburgh is led by Levance Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs, all seniors in the starting line-up, Marquette has the trio of senior gaurds in Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Mathews and Louisville has Terrence Williams, Andre McGee, Earl Clark, Jerry Smith and Edgar Sosa as upperclassmen to lead. Georgetown seems to be missing that important trait and the impact is pretty staggering.