Positives Heading Into Big East Play For Georgetown Hoyas

As New Year's Eve and the first conference game against St. John's quickly approach, I see some very positive things that have emerged for the Georgetown Hoyas. In my opinion, we have really improved since the first game of the season.

The best thing so far is obviously our record at 9-1. The Hoyas have faced their share of cupcakes, decent mid-majors, and top conference programs. If you read my last entry, you saw how I feared Old Dominion and Harvard because of our big wins the week before. Of course, some of that fear was correct.

The only unblemished mark on our record is the loss against Old Dominion. Not what exactly what the team and fans wanted, but  it could be worse. Shall we recall last year's epic collapse? I am a firm believer that no such thing will happen this season.

Butler and Washington are our big wins, and ones to build on as we enter the grueling Big East schedule. The Hoyas beat both very convincingly, proving to the nation what they can do when they are hitting on all cylinders.

Maybe the best thing that has risen from non-conference play is another source of scoring. Guard Chris Wright and forward Austin Freeman have emerged in games to help out Greg Monroe on the offensive end.

Chris Wright's 34 point performance against Harvard led Georgetown to a much needed victory. This is the most points scored by a Hoya since Jeff Green's phenomenal performance against Notre Dame in the 2007 Big East Tournament.

Wright's performance overshadowed the good game from Freeman, who connected on 8 shots and had 21 points, a career high.

Greg Monroe showed what his length could do as well. The sophomore forward had sixteen points, a career high 16 rebounds, and five blocked shots to help secure the W.

This may be the best we've been playing all year, and the Hoyas picked a good time to start clicking.  Heading into conference play, it looks like we have some motivation and good games to build on. If we can start out conference play with wins against St. John's and DePaul, that will look really good as we begin to get into the meat of the schedule and teams such as Marquette and UConn.

Georgetown is heading in the right direction. This is easily a team that could go to the Elite 8, and possibly, the Final Four. Time will tell as conference play begins.