It isn’t much fun being Georgetown head coach John Thompson III these days.
Georgetown has now lost five in a row and seven of their last eight. They’re going to finish the regular season under .500 for the second straight year and miss the NCAA tournament for the third time in four seasons. They lost at home to DePaul during this recent slide. The next game, they lost at St. John’s when there were Fire JT3 banners all over Madison Square Garden.
And that’s hardly the first time the fans have voiced their displeasure with the current regime. The “Fire Thompson” chants showed up all the way back in mid-November in Georgetown’s home loss to Arkansas State.
Then there was the story on ESPN this week that anonymously quoted four former Georgetown players that believe it’s time for a change in leadership in the program.
Which brings us to today.
After a blowout home loss against Villanova, Thompson was asked about external pressure distracting the team and, well, he wasn’t given a chance to answer the question:
And while JT3 won’t be answering questions publicly, there are questions that he’s going to have to answer privately.
Georgetown, too.
Because the bottom-line is this: The Hoya program is in as bad of shape as it’s been in since John Thompson Jr. took over and built the little private school in the richest part of Washington D.C. into a national title contender. And ‘Big Coach’ still lords over that program. He’s in every press conference after sitting on the baseline at every game. He’s friends with all the decision makers at the university, and the school just opened up the Thompson Center in October, a $64 million renovation to their on-campus practice facility, one that features a huge statue of Big Coach as soon as you walk in the front door.
At just about any other program, the level of fan apathy and lack of success would very likely lead to a change.
But at Georgetown, the son of the man that built that program will probably leave only when he decides that it is time to go.
And based on today’s four-minute postgame press conference, we probably won’t be getting an answer on when that will be any time soon.