As most of you now know, Midnight Madness is tonight, and there’s already been a lot of media attention given to the opening ceremony of the Hoyas’ season. Tonight, ESPNU along with college basketball guru Bill Raftery will be at McDonough Arena covering the night’s festivities. But there is one person who will not be there tonight: Jeff Green.

Jeff Green is gone. There is no replacing his abilities. There are other talented players who can adjust into new roles and help to compensate for what Green did last season, but he cannot be replaced. Green was the MVP of the Big East Regular Season and the Big East Tournament, but awards alone fail to illustrate a player’s importance. Green was one of the most clutch players in Hoya History. He won the game at Villanova with a tough baseline runner in the final seconds, he won the Big East Tournament semifinal with the basket and foul against Notre Dame, and he put the Hoyas into the Elite 8 with the game-winning bank shot against Vanderbilt. No Hoya has ever made more clutch shots in the final moments of crucial games in a single season - not Patrick Ewing, not Reggie Williams, not Charles Smith, nobody - period.

When the Hoyas begin the regular season on Saturday November 18, they will officially be a new team. At that point last year becomes the past. The matter at hand for Georgetown is not trying to be like last year’s team, but forge a new identity of success for this collection of players. The returning players all have big game experience. Roy Hibbert is trying to establish himself as the most dominant big-man in the nation and earn himself a lottery spot in next year’s NBA draft. Jonathan Wallace has proven himself to be a clutch shooter, but now he can be the number one option with the game on the line. Jessie Sapp, Patrick Ewing Jr., and DaJuan Summers move from being excellent role players who can each put up 20 points in any given game to players who can contribute big numbers, night in and night out. In many ways, if the Hoyas manage to be just as successful as last year it will be even sweeter because of the more difficult circumstances this year. They can’t replace Jeff Green, but maybe they won’t have to.