If you've been lax in checking out the new Georgetown basketball centennial website, here is a factoid I just saw on the webpage "This Day in Hoya History:" today is the day 38 years ago that GU Hall of Famer Charlie Adrion dismantled cross-town rival American with a 40-point performance, still good for fifth place in the GU all-time single game record book.
I was a lowly college freshman back then and Georgetown had yet to play a home game. Hearing about the junior center's performance inspired me to go down to McDonough for the next game, the first home contest of the season. I got there early, saw my classmates play the preliminary freshmen game and subsequently watched the undefeated cagers capture their third victory of the year. Less than three months a Hoya at the time, I've been attending games ever since.
Digitized issues of the HOYA are now available online
Like most Hoyas everywhere, tonight I'll be watching but not attending the Georgetown game. At 7:00 pm in Durham, North Carolina, the 18th-ranked Georgetown men's basketball team will face the #11 Duke Blue Devils. It's a bit different than last January when an enthralled partisan home crowd watched the unranked Hoyas take down the number one team in the nation at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. This time with just a handful of tickets for the Hoya faithful to venture into Cameron Indoor, thousands of followers of the Blue & Gray will have to find an ESPN2-friendly television screen to witness the sequel. Game watch gatherings of Hoya fans have been organized from coast-to-coast and in Europe and Asia as well.
Go Hoyas! Let's hope for an Adrion-like performance by one or more Hoyas tonight.
The last time that Georgetown traveled to Durham, it was another team from the Hilltop flying the colors. The basketball Hoyas were in Minneapolis on March 24, playing eventual national champion Florida in the NCAA Sweet 16. The team that went to Durham that weekend in March was the men's lacrosse team. As they were about to take the field for their March 25 contest, a Blue Devil athletic official entered their locker room to tell them that Duke was forfeiting the game. Somewhat perplexed by this unusual development, the Hoyas quickly changed clothes, got back on the bus and without fanfare, headed back to DC. Sadly, the painful saga of Duke lacrosse that had begun 12 days earlier soon became national news in the weeks and months that followed.
Pre-season rankings for men's D-I lacrosse (women's to follow) have been compiled and released by the magazine, Inside Lacrosse. With the Hoyas ranked fifth in the nation, it is curious that the top four ranked squads also just happen to be the same four teams that are playing an early season doubleheader organized, underwritten and promoted by, let me guess, Inside Lacrosse. Hmmm.
I won't quibble with this bit of preseason speculation though. Besides, the magazine saw fit to feature my favorite lacrosse player of all time on its next cover: former Hoya and world champion defenseman Brodie Merrill.
