It’s good to be tall, especially if you are a basketball player. The problem is, in college basketball, the rules are stacked against the tall guys.

Take Greg Monroe for example. He is the most recent in a long line of Hoya big men who have to deal with zone defenses, quadruple teams, and lots of little guards whacking and smacking at him every time he touches the ball in the post. Someday – hopefully in the fall of 2012 – Greg will finally be able to play with some form of illegal defense rules, limiting the number of players on the court who can stand around and wait to help. Until then, his life will be complicated and crowded.

The usual answer to providing help to such a player is for the guards to make more threes, which will eventually force defenders to lighten up on their post defense. That will not happen this year.

If the Hoya guards make 200 straight threes, I still imagine that teams will continue to crowd the post and take their chances with Georgetown’s long range shooting. There is another thing that can help Monroe in the post, and in turn give the Hoyas a small but important boost – Julian Vaughn.

In his past two games, Vaughn scored 11 points and 14 points, and combined to shoot 12 for 16 from the field (he missed one three which I’m not counting). The games against Lafayette and Mount St. Mary’s will seem like distant memories when the Hoyas face Connecticut and Louisville, but the one thing that will be the same is that Vaughn will see a lot of single coverage.

We used to say “Go to Work” when a player was posting up and not thinking about passing. Vaughn can’t do that very often in the Hoyas’ offensive scheme, but if he chooses his moments carefully, he can be pretty effective when he goes to work.

Even an extra 4-6 points in the first half of conference games would be a big help in freeing up shooters, and more importantly Monroe.

Image via GUHoyas.com