Rich Chvotkin has been the Voice of the Hoyas for over thirty years. We thought it would be a good idea to get some insights on the upcoming season for the Hoyas from the person who’s been around longer than anybody. Here’s what was said when we sat down with Rich:

Hoya Hoops: All right everybody, Tony Limarzi with you, this is HoyaHoops.com and our first interview. What better way to get things going than with the long-time voice of the Georgetown Hoyas, Rich Chvotkin? Rich, thanks a lot for being with us.

Rich Chvotkin: Tony, always a pleasure, I’m getting excited for this upcoming hoops season.

HH: What do you think is the most important factor for the Hoyas building on last year and not having sort of a let down after the great year this past season?

RC: One of the things John Thompson’s teams traditionally have is consistency. They don’t get too high, they don’t get too low, they take care of the basketball, they play good defense. Now obviously, with the loss of Jeff Green everybody’s wondering, ‘How are they going to replace him?’ Well, I think you replace him with your system. They have a lot of kids coming back, they have four starters returning, they have a couple of excellent freshmen coming in - Austin Freeman and Chris Wright - and again Vernon Macklin coming in off the bench like last year is going to be counted on to give some minutes. So they have a lot of weapons, and in John Thompson’s system, it’s not so much the players, it’s the system and how he works the offensive and defensive sets.

HH: We expect that Roy Hibbert and Jonathan Wallace are going to be the main guys for the Hoyas; who do you think is going to have the most impact of those guys a little further down the depth chart?

RC: Well, I think the way you’d look at it, Tony, is that you’d have a shared responsibility. I think DaJuan Summers last year at times took over games; he’s going to be counted on heavily this year, in his sophomore year. Jessie Sapp played very well last year, took care of the basketball; his assist to turnover ratio is very good. He can stroke the threes, he’s a strong penetrator, he was the third leading rebounder last year behind Hibbert and Green - that’s pretty good numbers. So he’s going to be counted on. And then, you’re going to have Patrick Ewing, Jr. who played a lot of minutes towards the end of the year, so he’s going to see a lot of time this year. Again, I don’t want to over stress this point, but I think these freshmen are really going to help a lot.

HH: Let’s talk about the freshmen then. Probably the two biggest names are guys that are right here, homegrown in the D.C. area: Chris Wright and Austin Freeman - one from St. John’s the other from DeMatha. What do you think about the impact they can make at the beginning part of the season? We know Wright is still dealing with that injury.

RC: These are very skilled players. Any time you go to schools like DeMatha or St. John’s, play in the WCAC with the kind of tradition that league has had and the teams that they’ve played, and these kids have been playing AAU ball since they were probably 9 years old. So these kids have been around the flagpole a few times. They’ve played in tough tournaments, they’ve played against great competition - McDonald’s All-Americans - so these kids are battle-tested. And I think John is going to count upon them to step right in. You’re probably going to see a lot of three guard offense between Sapp, Wallace, and either Freeman or Wright. You’re going to see a lot of help from these kids, and I think John expects that. That’s why you recruit these kids, knowing that they can step right in and play.

 

That’s all for this week. Check back on Monday for Part II of the interview.