It’s Senior Week at Georgetown, and while there won’t be any basketball players living it up at the President’s Picnic, Convocation, or Senior Ball (okay, some of the Hoyas will probably make their way to Union Station on Friday Night), that doesn’t mean that Georgetown Basketball fans should ignore what’s going on at the Hilltop.

• This is a time to reflect on the careers of DaJuan Summers, Jeremiah Rivers, and Vernon Macklin. Though none of them lasted four years, that doesn’t detract from the contributions they provided on the 2006 Big East Regular Season, Big East Tournament, and NCAA East Regional Championship team.
• It’s also a time to look back on the career of Greg Monroe. He’s heading to the NBA next season, and even if he comes back to earn his degree, this is his last week on campus as “normal” undergraduate – though his two years have been anything but ordinary.
• And while looking back on players gone is kind of a sad thing, there’s one big positive to look forward to this upcoming weekend. On Saturday, at the College Commencement, Hoya legend Dikembe Mutombo will be speaking. Besides addressing the 2010 senior class, Dikembe will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters from the University.

[Image via Life.com]

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the Hoyas’ home winning streak, and how at last the Hoyas have a real home court advantage. After the impressive win against UCONN on Monday, it’s time to turn our attention back home, as the Hoyas face Pitt on Saturday at the Verizon Center. We’re hoping Georgetown can keep the streak alive against the Panthers, and we’ve also put together a small list of the best moments so far.
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• Coach John Thompson III and assistants David Cox and Kenya Hunter were seen this past weekend at the Tombs with class of ’09 prospective recruit Dashonte Riley. Riley is a 6’10” center from Detroit Country Day. Here’s a link to some highlights from Youtube.
• Barker Davis of the Washington Times has written an article on next year’s team, discussing the high turnover of players with Coach Thompson. In the article, it confirms that recruit Chris Braswell will not be joining the team because of academic issues and that Florida State big man, Julian Vaughn is indeed transferring to the hilltop.
• Also according to Barker Davis, Jeremiah Rivers is planning to transfer to Indiana University.

We already told you about Jeremiah Rivers choosing to transfer, but here’s what his father Doc had to say about his decision [from Boston.com]:

“It’s something he wanted to do,” said Doc Rivers. “I loved where he was at. He wants to be happy in a different system. He loved Coach [John] Thompson. I love Coach Thompson. It was a tough one.

“I didn’t try [to change his mind] because if I did and it didn’t work out then it’s Dad’s fault. I did try to show him where he was at as far as school. He was playing a lot and had a great chance to start the following year.

“Kids, sometimes they want to do things and you just support him. That’s what you do as a parent.”

According to The Hoya, Sophomore guard Jeremiah Rivers intends to transfer from Georgetown this season to an as yet undisclosed university. They don’t cite their sources and there is no official word from the Athletic Department as of yet, but The Hoya tends to be a reliable source, and this news does not come as a surprise to many close to the situation.

If true, Jeremiah will be the second sophomore to transfer from Georgetown in two weeks, leaving the 2008-2009 team with only two players – Jessie Sapp and DaJuan Summers – who were on the Final Four team from two years ago.

We talked about transfers once the season was over, and now it looks as if Jeremiah and Vernon will have to join the growing list of unexcused absences.

–Update–
It is official. Here’s the GU press release.

Teams

Georgetown:
The Hoyas utterly dominated the game in all aspects. The smothering defense kept St. John’s without a field goal for most of the first half, while the overpowering offense started the game on a 27-3 run. Even without perma-starter DaJuan Summers in the lineup, the Hoyas cruised to their easiest victory of the year.
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Basketball is a game of ratios. Now, I know what you are thinking. “Ratios? Like 3:2? You never see that in a box score.” Well, true. But in mathematics, we define a ratio to be anything of the form x/y, where x and y are integers. And while we don’t usually see ratios in this form, they are all over the box score: 3-33 from the field in the second half. 39-74 from the free throw line. 5-20 from beyond the arc. These are all ratios, and most of the time they materialize themselves as percentages. However, there is one time when we do look at the numbers in the traditional form. And that is the assist-to-turnover ratio.
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Teams

GU:
The Hoyas did not have their best game on Saturday, but they toughed it out and got the win. Playing without Jessie Sapp, who has been the team’s MVP so far this season, definitely hurt the Hoyas, and it took them a while to get into a rhythm.

The perimeter defense was shaky in the first half, but that got rectified at halftime, and the bigger concern is the team’s free throw shooting. While going 9-22 from the line on Saturday was pretty bad, the real problem is that the Hoyas are not doing much better on the season. In Georgetown’s first five games, they’ve gone 39 of 74 from the line – 52.7%.
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Teams

GU:
The Hoyas had a great game last night, showing why they are the #5 team in the country by playing with poise and simply executing, particularly in the second half.

The main thing that stuck out for me, though, was the team’s passing. Georgetown made several crisp passes that demanded that the players knew where each other were going to be. This not only shows that the Hoyas are getting more comfortable with the offense, but they are also getting more comfortable with each other.
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