How Good Is Georgetown?

The Georgetown Hoyas are currently ranked ninth in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls. They are ranked this high strictly because they reached the Final Four last year, allowing to be ranked fifth in the preseason polls, and have only lost twice since.

It's reasonable for teams to be high in the rankings because of success in a prior year. But the fact that they made the Final Four doesn't mean Georgetown was one of the four best teams in the country last year. They were a 2 seed, which indicates that they were not; in fact, they probably weren't in the top 5, with UCLA ahead of them.

The Hoyas weren't exactly dominant leading up to the Final Four, either. They were one Jeff Green traveling call away from a Sweet 16 exit against Vandy. And they needed a 16-6 run at the end of the Carolina game to send it into overtime. Not to take anything away from them- these were both fantastic wins- but their preseason ranking would have been a lot different if a couple breaks had gone against them.

Georgetown only lost one key player from last year's team, Jeff Green. This made it somewhat difficult to gauge the strength of the returning squad. If both Green and Hibbert had come back, they'd likely have been the preseason #1. If they'd both left, they would've found themselves in the lower half of the Top 25. But with one staying and the other going, it was really hard to know.

Which brings us to what they've done so far this season. 15-2 is a nice looking record, but there's really not that much substance to it. They've played two quality opponents on the road, losing to Memphis by 14 and Pitt by nine. In their other two Big East road games they beat Rutgers by 12, and DePaul by 16.

Their most impressive performance to date is probably an 84-65 win over Notre Dame at home. They've also beaten UConn and Syracuse at the Verizon Center, but both of those games were close (UConn by 3, Syracuse by 2 in OT). They haven't yet beaten a ranked team, for whatever that's worth.

Point being, I really don't think Georgetown has proven anything yet. They weren't that good last year, and they lost their best player. They've lost their two big tests so far, and haven't won a road game against a team with a Top 100 RPI. They're only ranked in the top 10 because they started the year there.

On Saturday the Hoyas play at West Virginia. The Mountaineers have been unimpressive on the road, but at home they have beaten Duquesne, Marquette and Syracuse by 24, 15, and 20 points, respectively. It will be very interesting to see what the point spread is for that one- I wouldn't be surprised to see the line close to even, with West Virginia possibly being favored.

Photo: Rush the Court.