Syracuse-Georgetown Basketball Deathmatch: Casual Hoya Answers TNIAAM's Important Questions

You know Casual Hoya. If you don't, here's the quick and dirty: It's the other site on the SB Nation network dedicated to obsessing over Syracuse basketball. Casual Hoya -- the guy that runs the show at Casual Hoya and couldn't eke out a living in Dunk City -- answered some important questions that came out of my gigantic brain.

1. How's DePaul doing? Are you guys getting serious? It was a big decision to move in together. I hope you guys are happy with each other. Maybe you guys will have a little Jesuit basketball school together that will someday grow up to play games on a network that is available only on CB radio.

Hoyas haven’t played Cuse in two years and you’re leading off with a DePaul question? You realize that your precious Orange were in the same hoops conference with DePaul not too long ago, correct? And that the reasons you left said conference had nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with football and money, correct? In fact, I’d wager there’s a large part of your fanbase that wishes the Orange had never left the Big East for hoops, and would prefer to see Syracuse play a school located in Chicago with a basketball-rich tradition instead of the dregs of the ACC in scenic Winston-Salem, NC a scant 650 miles away from your decrepit campus.

2. It's been two seasons since C.J. Fair dunked on Otto Porter's face in the final real Big East Tournament, setting off a chain reaction where (1) Georgetown could only cower in terror to 15-seed Florida Gulf Coast, and (2) Syracuse would cut down the nets on Georgetown's home floor en route to the Final Four. Tell me:

• Has Georgetown lost to any other Gulf Coasts since 2013?
• If you were an artist, how would you memorialize Porter getting ferociously dunked on in the most important moment of the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry? Sculpture? Oil on velvet?
• Do you think that Georgetown has what it takes to cut down the nets at Verizon Center en route to the NIT Final Four?

Admittedly it’s been awhile since I heard the name C.J. Fair. How did he do for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants last season?

To address the more pointed questions:

• No, the Hoyas haven’t lost to any other Gulf Coasts since 2013, though it’s probably worth noting that the Hoyas haven’t lost to a team that hasn’t advanced to at least the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAAs since 2010. Hooray, right! More on this later.
• I suppose we have different views on the most important moments of the Rivalry, but if you can find an artist to commission the below I’d purchase it for at least $50 American.
  

  

• I graduated in ’99 but even back then we had scissors. Not sure they teach how to use such a crafty tool at Cuse in the widely popular Doofus 101 classes that undoubtedly Fab Melo failed.

3. Saturday will mark the earliest that Syracuse and Georgetown have ever met. (Prior to this season, the earliest meeting occurred on December 12, 1967, when Vaughn Harper presumably dunked all over Georgetown in a 95-78 bludgeoning.)  This is supposed to happen in February when Georgetown is well into its long con of making everybody think that the Hoyas won't lose to a Gulf Coast in March. Is this weird or is it actually better -- a defined launch with excitement surrounding it that isn't sullied by Georgetown burning up on re-entry.

It’s too damn early. The Hoyas travel to UConn at the end of January and that would have been a better date for our renewal of tensions. With an early December date it almost has the feel of an exhibition match, and hopefully you will be the Apollo to our Drago.

4. Actual basketball question -- Bradley Hayes, Marcus Derrickson, and Isaac Copeland look like they're getting the most run in Georgetown's frontcourt this year according to Ken Pomeroy's basketball computer. Is this a problem for Syracuse and, more importantly, which of these guys is most likely to get murderously dunked on?

Our guy Marcus Derrickson appears to be the real deal at the stretch 4, nearly helping the Hoyas pull the upset at Maryland and recently putting up 12 and 12 against the vaunted Bryant Bulldogs. In watching Cuse play in the Battle 4 Atlantis (note I saw roughly 30 seconds before my eyes began to bleed), I do think that the Orange Zone is susceptible on the baseline, and this Hoyas team certainly has the size to cause some serious matchup problems for y’all that I am drooling over. In addition to Hayes, Derrickson and Copeland, you will see a lot of freshman center Jessie Govan, a true center who can mix it up in the paint but also hit the casual three.

5. Georgetown's accumulated attendance this season (20,125) is less than Syracuse's average attendance this year (20,389). Assuming that Syracuse fans are going to make Georgetown's basketball budget again, offer some options for things Syracuse fans can do around D.C. after turning the Verizon Center into something other than a basketball mausoleum.

Thank you for your patronage, as always. In exchange, I suggest you check out the Hooters in Chinatown right by the arena which is BY FAR the best in the country. As an alternative, I suggest playing the game where you descend into the metro station and lie down on the tracks while the next train approaches. From what I understand you won’t actually feel a thing.

6. Is there any heat on John Thompson III? (I'm talking about urgency from normal people, not suffered-head-trauma-and-typing-things-on-the-internet people)? Thompson hasn't been to a Sweet Sixteen since back-to-back visits in 2006 and 2007 (Jeff Green, Brandon Bowman, and Roy Hibbert, major jerks on those teams, all committed while Mustacherick was running Georgetown directly into the ground). I see that Georgetown is erecting some kind of basketball practice facility that will allow the Hoyas to learn how to lose to a Gulf Coast, but is there any urgency on Thompson to do something in March?

Thank you for noticing that we are building a huge gigantic facility that, by the way, you can donate to RIGHT HERE! [Ed. Note: Link garbled in transmission.]

I’d also like to point out that this facility is not being named after a player who played for us for just one season, which is precisely what the Cusians did for Carmelo Anthony after renting him for one year. Might as well also point out that it made Georgetown’s win over the Orange at the Carrier Dome in 2013 all the more special as that was the same day Syracuse stupidly decided to pull one of its legendary jersey retirement ceremonies and made Carmelo watch the Carrier Dome get closed up close after seeing his jersey hoisted to the cobweb filled rafters at halftime. Note to the school’s credit: I do believe they spelled his name correctly on the jersey.

Regarding JT3, a lot has been made of the March failures, but really when you break it down only 2010’s loss to Ohio was pretty much inexcusable as all of the others can be somewhat explained. To wit:

2008: Davidson (2nd round, had a guy named Stephen Curry)
2009: we don’t remember 2009
2010: Ohio (unmitigated disaster)
2011: VCU (made Final Four)
2012: lost to NC State in 2nd Round after crushing Belmont (probably should have won but NC State was good)
2013: FGCU (likely still a disaster, but they did advance to Sweet 16)
2014: we don’t remember 2014
2015: lost to Utah in 2nd round after crushing Eastern Washington (Utah damn good last year)

So you see, it’s really not all that horrible. I mean, it really is, but still. And re: talent, people that want JT3 gone always bring up the ‘Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert were Esherick recruits’ thing but the reality is that both of those guys could barely play before JT3 got there and both attribute a great deal of their "NBA success" (you can look that up on Google since you probably don’t know what that means) to JT3. JT3 also recruited Otto Porter who was a Top 3 pick and is currently starting for your Wizards of Washington.

7. I want to drown your face in my toilet.

That’s not very nice. As an aside, did you know that water that fills the toilet bowl is the same water that comes out of your tap and thus the water in your toilet bowl is as clean as the water you drink? Does this perhaps change the location of where you would like to drown my face from say, the toilet to perhaps the sink? It’s interesting.