KING JAMES BIBLE: Right Coach, Right Position

Amidst the celebration and congratulations, the whispers bounced around in a ridiculous manner.

This wasn’t the right situation for him.

It’s a dead-end job with a program that has become a conference doormat.

He’ll never be able to make his own name for himself—he’ll always be overshadowed by his father.

As it appeared ever more certain that Princeton’s John Thompson III would be named as the head coach of the Georgetown men’s basketball team, the whispers grew in volume becoming open musings about the relative strengths of the Hoya job.

Maybe, I’m missing something here, but we’re talking about an Ivy League coach with just four years experience—and only one 20 win season on his resume—yet there are people out there questioning whether or not a move to the Big East is a good decision for him.

The key issue to most observers, however, isn’t the conference in general, but rather Georgetown’s fading role in it.

Of course, the Hoyas’ inability to build an on-campus facility hurts its student support. Of course, the recent fall from grace of the Georgetown program has tarnished a coaching position that was once on the level of the North Carolina and Kansas. Of course, Georgetown’s composition as an academic institution makes it inherently more difficult to compete against other Big East schools.

But these are precisely the reasons why this is the right job for Thompson at exactly the right time.

The Hoyas’ fans pine for the days of the elder John Thompson, when the team was a perennial powerhouse and a stalwart in the NCAA tourney. The entrance of his son might be the spark that the student body needs to throw its support back behind the program. Maybe the MCI Center will provide Georgetown with a home court advantage that isn’t solely based on proximity to campus.

I’ve personally seen Thompson “work the room” in press conferences. He’s a charismatic guy. That’s why I expect that the Georgetown students will take to him and provide him with the support that began to fade in the Craig Esherick era.

To keep the support, Thompson must bring the Hoyas back to prominence in the Big East. But it’s not as if Georgetown has fallen all that far off the pace. Two seasons ago, the Hoyas finished second in the NIT post-season tournament. Along the way to that runner-up finish, Georgetown knocked off Tennessee, Providence and North Carolina—all on the road.

In 2001, the Hoyas made the Sweet 16 before falling to eventual West Regional champion Maryland.

True, Georgetown is coming fresh off a disappointing 13-15 season, but Thompson’s been in this situation before.

When he took over the Princeton job from Bill Carmody, the Tigers were two years removed from a 27-2 season—one in which the team was ranked in the top 10 in the national polls. But the team was coming directly off a season in which it had won fewer than 20 games for the first time in five years and had missed the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year.

In his first season as coach, Thompson won the Ivy title—the first of three during his four year tenure—and took the Tigers back to the Big Dance. No one would call what Thompson did at Princeton a turnaround. He just provided a slight shift that got the Tigers headed back in the right direction. Funny, because it seems that’s exactly what Georgetown needs.

Then there’s the issue of competing in the Big East while being burdened with the numerous restrictions that Georgetown must place on its athletic programs in order to maintain its status as an academic institution. But something tells me that coming from Princeton, Thompson has developed a skill for recruiting and getting the most out of the types of athletes that Georgetown would be inclined to accept.

And it’s true that the Hoyas aren’t throwing as much money at the basketball program as they have in the past. I’m still guessing that the budget Thompson will have to work with at Georgetown will be slightly bigger than the one he had as coach of the Tigers—although with Princeton’s endowment, who knows. It’s even possible that Georgetown will want this venture to succeed so badly that they’ll throw more money back in basketball’s direction.

In the end, you can’t ignore the whispers. The Georgetown job has very real flaws presenting uncharted waters that would scare away most coaches. But that won’t bother Thompson—he’s seen it all before.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears every Friday.