If You Like Overrated Teams That Will Let You Down, Root For Georgetown

Listen. My dad grew up in DC. My mom went to Georgetown, and was an extra in The Exorcist. College Allen Iverson is, in my opinion, the greatest basketball player of all time. I grew up playing ball with Austin Freeman. One of my best friends went to Georgetown, and another one is an assistant coach on the team, right now. I was just at a Georgetown game like three weeks ago. I love Georgetown. I am Georgetown. Fuck Georgetown.

This is a sports site, so I suppose this is when I hit you with some sports statistics. There are 88 teams that score more points than them a game, and 129 that concede fewer. Eighty-one teams shoot better, and 123 pass better. In their last five trips to the NCAA tournament, Georgetown has won just two more games than me. I have never been to the NCAA tournament.

What all of this means, of course, is that Georgetown University, storied college basketball program, is not, at the moment, much good at playing basketball. Big John Thompson more or less handed the program down to his son, Bald John Thompson, like a family member would hand down an heirloom watch, or a backward country would hand down governance. Since, the Hoyas have been renowned for having an offense that, though manned by an assembly of 20-year-old superhumans, is impressively and nigh impossibly stagnant. Watching Georgetown in the half-court is like watching paint dry, if you were watching paint dry while dipping your bleeding testes in a fish tank stocked with piranhas and Moray eels. The difference this year, though, is that the defense is trash as well.

By the grace of God, or whatever, though, the Powers That Be have deemed my beloved squad a four seed. This of course doesn't matter much, because these athletes will again be full-time students at one of the world's foremost Jesuit institutions by Saturday, if not before. However, their seeding is relevant in this case, because it mandates that they play 13th-seed Eastern Washington. I write about sports for a living. Basketball is my favorite sport to watch. I was a college student-athlete. I make a point to travel to different parts of this glorious country of ours as often as possible. I live in a gargantuan metropolitan area and have met people from all over the world. I have never heard of Eastern Washington. If someone were to ask me if Eastern Washington could field a squad capable of beating a national powerhouse such as my Georgetown Hoyas, "Nah," I would respond. "Prolly not." And yet.

Here is Jim Hayford, the head coach of Eastern Washington and notable only for his resemblance to homie from The Shield, speaking to Jim Rome just yesterday. The interview itself is in no way notable except for the way Hayford signs off.

"We're gonna win and talk again, Jim," he said.

When I heard this news, I was infuriated—not because of Hayford's arrogance, or his belief in his team of nobodies from a place no one has ever heard of, but because I immediately knew in my heart that this guy was correct. This wasn't even shit-talk. This was a safe bet, a reasonable assumption. Because Hayford knows, like I know, and like Bald and Big John Thompson know, and like Jay Bilas knows, and like you probably know, too, that Eastern Washington were and are blessed, because they were gifted my Georgetown Hoyas.

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