princetonbasketball.com has learned that Georgetown assistant and Princeton standout Sydney Johnson has been offered the head coaching job at Princeton. As of earlier today Johnson had not yet accepted the job, but was expected to. The Daily Princetonian is also reporting this news, citing "individuals close to the program and the search."
Johnson '97 was a three-time captain of the Tigers and was named Ivy League Player of the Year after his senior season. Johnson, 32, has been an assistant at Georgetown the last three years after returning stateside following a successful seven year professional basketball career in Spain and Italy.
The Wisconsin State Journal adds another candidate to the list of possible Princeton coaches.
The Princeton Athletic Department provides some further detail on the awards and award winners from last night's basketball banquet.
Georgetown's Jeff Green says there is a '70-30' chance he will return to the Hoyas next season instead of heading off to the NBA. Roy Hibbert puts his odds at '50-50.'
Gregg Lange writes about the 1966-67 Princeton Tigers, calling that squad the program's best ever.
Jeff Peterson has given an oral commitment to Iowa and has until Monday to sign a letter of intent.
Air Force assistant and former Falcon A.J. Kuhle plans to join Joe Scott's staff at Denver once his contract is finalized. A source says former Princeton assistant Robert Burke was a candidate for the Air Force job, and that discussions reached the negotiation stage before Jeff Reynolds was hired.
Will Venable goes 0-3, as the Missions are shut out.
Joseph White from AP has the first interview with John Thompson III since the Final Four.
ESPN The Magazine writes about Chris Young and his thesis on Jackie Robinson. Young will pitch Sunday night on ESPN as Major League Baseball honors the 60th anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier.
Princeton recruit Kareem Maddox writes a lengthy testimonial for Baseline To Baseline, a service that helps high school players improve their skills.
Chris Mooney announces that Richmond has signed five players to play basketball for the Spiders.
Finally, Tommy Amaker was officially named the men's basketball coach at Harvard. This leaves 12 open head coaching positions in Division I, including Princeton.
In light of yesterday's story, if I had come across the sign for a one man show at the High Art Museum one day sooner, I would have taken it as a very positive omen.
Instead, I just took it as another opportunity to eat a banana.
Throughout Georgetown's incredible run to the 2007 Final Four, there has been an oft-incomprehensible member of the HoyaTalk message board posting the same story again and again.
It is a parable told in all caps and awash in emoticons, but the tale goes something like this:
As a young man, legendary coach Al McGuire was at the beach with his grandmother.
Al was about to go out with his friends.
Al's grandmother offered him a banana to eat but McGuire said he was not hungry.
When McGuire returned famished later that day, the banana was gone.
The moral was - as his grandmother informed him - "Al, when you have the banana, eat the banana."
This fable had become the rallying cry for Hoya faithful during every comeback and each heart-pausing victory that beget another fantastic finish.
In the first semifinal of this evening's NCAA Final Four, it was Ohio State that ate the banana.
It had been another rally for the Hoyas, who had trailed by eight points in the first half. Georgetown drew even at 44 with 9:45 left on Jonathan Wallace's step-back three point shot.
Hoya center Roy Hibbert picked up his fourth personal foul, called for holding on a loose ball scramble as both teams tried to track down Ron Lewis' missed three pointer. Hibbert headed to the sidelines.
Saddled with three personal fouls of his own, Ohio State freshman center Greg Oden came back off the bench and started a 7-0 Buckeye run with a right-handed hook over the Hoyas' Jeff Green. Two transition layups for Ohio State, each following a missed Georgetown three point shot, gave the Buckeyes six points in a single minute. By the time Hibbert returned to the lineup three possessions separated the two teams.
When Jessie Saap drove to the basket for a layup with 3:21 left Georgetown was back to within four, 56-52. The Hoyas would get the ball as Oden missed from just outside his comfort range. Oden was whistled for his fourth foul as Green drove on him and was hacked.
Georgetown did a great job this season calling set plays out of time outs, but did not have similar success after the game's final media stoppage.
Inbounding in the frontcourt, Hibbert flashed to the rim, however ball did not come his way. Green made a move to the basket from the wing as the defense swarmed to the Hoyas' 7'2" big man, but one Buckeye defender got in Green's way to draw an offensive foul.
Down at the other side of the Georgia Dome, a short Oden jumper went back iron and in, and Ohio State could start to peel their spot in Monday's championship game.
Hibbert finished with 19 points and 6 rebounds. Oden had 13 points and 9 boards. Both manchildren were hampered by foul problems. Hibbert was whistled on the game's first possession. Oden picked up two fouls in the first three minutes. It took Hibbert 13 minutes to get called for his second foul, flagged on a bump after having just recorded consecutive slams.
Georgetown was the first of the 2007 Final Four participants to have an open practice this afternoon at the Georgia Dome. The team and select players met the media afterwards. The audio links are below.
Georgetown's starters were 3-22 from three point range the other time the Hoyas played in a dome this season (@ Syracuse, a 72-58 loss). Outside shooting will be something to watch closely tomorrow night. The cavenous Georgia Dome is full of odd angles, open spaces and funky sightlines.
These tricked-out Krispy Kreme donuts were a nice touch.
Trailing by nine points with six minutes to play against North Carolina in the NCAA East Regional final, Georgetown never wavered from who they were.
"We wanted to stick with our stuff [on offense] because we knew it worked." said guard Jessie Saap. "We didn't want to go into anything different because it's been working all year."
The Hoyas rallied from a 75-66 deficit, sending the game to overtime and the Continental Airlines Arena into bedlam on a soft Jonathan Wallace three point short with thirty seconds to play in regulation.
"I call Jon 'Buckets' because to me, Jon doesn't miss." said Georgetown co-captain Tyler Crawford after the game. "That's Jon Wallace. He played with tremendous confidence."
The Hoyas switched to a 2-3 zone defense down double figures midway through the second half and North Carolina was unable to get the second chance opportunities and the points in the paint they had used to build their lead. The Tarheels finished the evening in a 2-23 shooting slide.
From the start of overtime the Hoyas knocked North Carolina out with an incredible 14-0 run. On Georgetown's first possession Jeff Green passed diagonally from the wing to a cutting Jonathan Wallace for a backdoor layup. Wallace faked coming up top behind a Roy Hibbert screen, then slashed fed to the basket as Ty Lawson spun in the wrong direction, laying the ball in as it reached him in stride.
An errant backdoor bounce pass by Green in traffic deflected to DaJuan Summers for a two-handed throwdown that doubled the Georgetown lead. Following a Tyler Hansbrough traveling violation Jeff Green drove to his left and used the glass to send the Hoyas out to their biggest advantage of the night. Six straight Georgetown free throws opened the lead up to 93-81 and the champions of the east were crowned on a breakaway throwdown from Summers.
Summers finished with 20 points, and East regional Most Outstanding Player Jeff Green appeared genuinely surprised after the game upon learning that he and not Summers had received this honor.
As the Georgetown band chanted "JT3! JT3!" Coach Thompson strolled across the court to reach his father, who was broadcasting the game for Westwood One. Thompson stopped along the way to embrace the small grey-haired man with the Georgetown hat sitting on the sidelines. It was his collegiate coach, Pete Carril.
"[Coach Carril] is a part of what we're doing." explained Thompson. "I just wanted to go over and give him a hug." Coach Carril and Thompson shared an embrace and a high five. They both went over to press row where they were guests on Thompson's father's broadcast. The two iconic figures of Princeton basketball and Georgetown basketball standing proudly alongside the man they had both been such strong influences on.
When Coach Thompson climbed the ladder to cut down the final strand of the net, he led the crowd in his favorite cheer.
We are...
Georgetown!
We are...
Georgetown!
We are...
Georgetown!
The Hoyas were heading to the Final Four, and Georgetown had proved that they knew who they were all along.
Pete Carril (in Hoyas hat) holds an impromptu press conference after the game.
princetonbasketball.com was founded on April 28th, 1998 in an attempt to provide fans of the Princeton Tigers and Ivy League basketball with the best on-line source for up-to-date news and information. We have since expanded to launch a companion site, Georgetown Basketball News.
As these sites have continued to grow we have increased our coverage to include additional teams with Princeton connections - the Richmond Spiders, Denver Pioneers, Oregon State Beavers, Fairfield Stags and Mercer County Community College Vikings - plus former Tigers playing professional baseball and basketball all over the world. This site is not directly affiliated with the Friends of Princeton Basketball, Princeton University or the Princeton athletic department.
Sun. 11/10 vs. Florida A&M
Sat. 11/16 at Butler
Wed. 11/20 vs. Lafayette
Sat. 11/23 at Rice
Tue. 11/26 vs. George Mason
Sat. 11/30 at Bucknell
Sat. 12/7 vs. FDU
Wed. 12/11 at Rutgers
Sat. 12/14 at Penn State
Fri. 12/20 vs. Portland*
Sat. 12/21 vs. Pacific*
Tue. 12/31 vs. Kent State
Sat. 1/4 at Liberty
Sat. 1/11 at Penn
Sun. 1/26 vs. Kean
Fri. 1/31 at Harvard
Sat. 2/1 at Dartmouth
Fri. 2/7 vs. Columbia
Sat. 2/8 vs. Cornell
Fri. 2/14 at Brown
Sat. 2/15 at Yale
Fri. 2/21 vs. Dartmouth
Sat. 2/22 vs. Harvard
Fri. 2/28 vs. Yale
Sat. 3/1 vs. Brown
Fri. 3/7 at Cornell
Sat. 3/8 at Columbia
Tue. 3/11 vs. Penn
2,503 - B. Bradley, 1962-65
1,625 - I. Hummer, 2009-13
1,550 - D. Davis, 2008-12
1,546 - K. Mueller, 1987-91
1,451 - P. Campbell, 1959-62
1,441 - C. Robinson, 1979-83
1,428 - B. Earl, 1995-99
1,365 - B. Scrabis, 1985-89
1,321 - G. Petrie, 1967-70
1,292 - H. Haabestad, 1952-55
1,277 - G. Lewullis, 1995-99
1,239 - B. Taylor, 1970-72
1,207 - S. Goodrich 1994-98
1,133 - F. Sowinski, 1975-78
1,130 - R. Hielscher, 1991-95
1,122 - C. Thomforde, 1966-69
1,099 - T. Manakas, 1970-73
1,090 - J. Wallace, 2001-05
1,088 - C. Belz, 1956-59
1,079 - B. Hauptfuhrer, 1973-76
1,076 - B. Roma, 1976-79
1,071 - C. Mooney, 1990-94
1,064 - A. Hyland, Jr., 1960-63
1,062 - L. Brangan, 1957-60
1,057 - A. Hill, 1973-76
1,054 - D. Mavraides, 2007-11
1,044 - S. Johnson, 1993-1997
1,031 - J. Hummer, 1967-70
1,010 - W. Venable, 2001-05
