Georgetown Preview: Good...We're the Underdog!

Fresh off a 17-point, 2^nd half comeback win against Marquette, the Georgetown Hoyas come to town this weekend to face off against a WVU Men's Basketball team that Wednesday played perhaps its most dominating game to date against Rutgers.

Georgetown was picked to finish 10^th in the Big East at the start of this season and at 13-1 is now ranked 9^th in the country. They are in many ways similar to West Virginia in that they are a very young team being led by veterans who’ve really stepped up their game. Jason Clark leads the Hoyas in scoring (15.9 ppg), including a game-high 26 in the comeback against Marquette. Junior Hollis Thompson (13.9 ppg) is also a key player, a great shooter with the ability to drain the threes when it counts.

I’ve started to feel about the WVU basketball team the way I feel about our football team – they have the capacity to beat anyone when they are properly motivated. Hence, post-Orange Bowl, I want teams and sports networks to always count them out, disrespect them and make them the underdog. When that happens, WVU boys tend to get a little "chippy."

You saw that potential hoops intensity against Rutgers Wednesday night when we went on a 32-8 run midway through the first half to turn the game into a blowout…just about two hours before the football team did the same thing to Clemson.

The media will hopefully predict that Georgetown will (in the words of ESPN’s Kirk Turdstreit) "destroy West Virginia." That’ll fire our guys up. Seriously, I’ve now determined not to get mad when Lee Corso doesn’t put on the coonskin cap or when Jay Bilas picks any ACC team over WVU. I’m actually hoping they all talk us down.

In fact, if Huggs wants to get the most out of that fancy new basketball training center, he ought to 24 hours a day run ESPN "diss" clips on all the flat screens. Get them good and angry. Then perhaps Truck might stop smiling for a minute and go all "Tavon Austin" on their asses.

Tip off is Saturday at Noon. If you’re not in Morgantown to see the game, it will be on MASN, SNY, ESPN Full Court at your local pub or on ESPN3 if you’re not a cheap SOB still using dial up Internet.