Nov. 15, 2010

Georgetown Basketball's Home Opener: Building Our Home Court Advantage

Coach John Thompson III often talks about taking baby steps, and having to "figure things out." I often think about that when we start a new basketball season. It also applies to us building our home court advantage at the Verizon Center. I often hear people say that since we play in a professional arena we cannot get people in the stands on time, and cannot have a crowd of all Hoya fans. I do not believe that. Since the arrival of Coach John Thompson III the program has come a long way reaching the Final Four in 2007, and the finals of the Big East Tournament three out of the last four years. Our season ticket fan base has grown tremendously over those years, and if you look at the Duke games in 2006 & 2010 we know that we can create a very impressive home court advantage in the Verizon Center. We just need to figure out how to do that for all of our games, especially Big East conference games. Let's start tonight--Arrive Early & Wear Gray!

This past Friday, I took a drive down I-95 South and I-64 arriving in Norfolk, VA. I had never been to a game at Old Dominion, but after recent losses to ODU at McDonough Gymnasium I was anxious to replace those memories with a Hoya win. I did not know any Georgetown alumni who lived in that area, so I searched through my Georgetown Facebook friends. One day I found a new FB friend who lived in Norfolk. He suggested Cogan's Pizza which was about a mile from the Ted Constant Center at ODU. I had a great time meeting with many of my Hoya Hoop Club friends before the game. It was great seeing Joe Montgomery, Joe McGuinness, Karen Schneider, Mike Kelley, Bobby Bancroft, and others. HHC President Al Bozzo made a late appearance with Peter "The Dancer" Freeman on their way to the arena. It took a long time to get our pizza, but it was very good.

When I arrived at the arena I was very impressed with the facility, especially all of the pictures sho wing the history of ODU basketball. Their fans were tremendous creating a very difficult atmosphere for us to play in. To our credit, Georgetown never lost their composure even with a cold shooting performance in the first half where we only scored nineteen points. However, during a key stretch of the second half, the DC Hoya Triplets: Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, and Jason Clark shot the lights out from the 3-point line figuring out a way for the Hoyas to get a quality win on the road in a hostile arena. I returned to Cogan's Pizza with fellow HHC Board member Rob Swain and others. The pizza tasted even better after the comeback win. Indeed the drive back to the Hilltop to see the football team play Lehigh on Saturday was very more pleasant.

I hope to see many Hoya fans tonight as we start to build our home court advantage at Verizon Center. Let's make "DC our Playground!"

I will be writing an e-newsletter for the Hoya Hoop Club in a few minutes summarizing all of our communication vehicles for the new season. You can usually find me and other HHC Board members in front of Section 120 before home games and at half-time. Please come by and say hello. You can find more information about the Hoya Hoop Club & Georgetown Basketball through our official Facebook Pages:

Hoya Hoop Club: www.facebook.com/Hoya Hoop Club

Georgetown Athletics: www.facebook.com/WeAreGeorgetown

Please join these Facebook Pages for the most complete coverage of Georgetown Basketball.

If you are coming to our game tonight please come meet fellow Hoya Hoop Club members at our pre-game get together:

KICK-OFF THE 2010-2011 SEASON
WITH THE HOOP CLUB AT GORDON BIERSCH

Monday November 15th before the Georgetown Home Against Tulane

900 F Street NW

(We will be in the Marzen Room)

5:30 PM

$1.00 off all Gordon Biersch Beers

$1.00 off Wine

$5.00 Premium Cocktails

Dr. Thomas A. Wong

Hoya Hoop Club Vice President--Communications

Proud Member of Generation Ewing