Home > The Back Page

Just Another Team
By Kevin Casey

Time flies when you're filling a legend's shoes.

Five years ago today, John Thompson suddenly stepped down as coach of the Georgetown basketball program he built into a national powerhouse and turned the reins over to his long-time assistant, Craig Esherick.

Thompson brought three Final Fours, one National Championship and six - that's SIX - Big East Tournament titles to the Hilltop. Under his watch, the Hoyas earned 20 NCAA Tournament bids, including 14 straight from 1979-92.

But the program he handed to his loyal assistant was troubled. After Allen Iverson's thrilling two-year stay from 1994-96, the dominance of Thompson's teams quickly waned, and things were looking bleak when he hung up his storied towel after going 0-4 to open Big East play during the 1998-99 season. Troubled by player departures and off-court problems during Thompson's final seasons, the program's issues seemed to stick with the team on the court.

Enter Esherick, a Hoya since playing for Thompson in the 70s, recipient of two Georgetown degrees (MSB 78, L 82) and a face on the sidelines since hitching on as a graduate assistant during the 1979-1980 season. It made sense: who else could pilot the ship in mid-stream?

The appointment drew inevitable comparisons to Brian Mahoney, the ill-fated successor to Thompson's peer and rival at St. John's, Lou Carnesecca. Mahoney went 56-58 over four seasons before being replaced.

On Saturday, Esherick won his 100th game as head coach. Last spring, he was handed a contract extension through 2009 by Athletic Director Joe Lang, who called attention to Esherick's 20-win average over his four full seasons as head coach.

Esherick has seemingly outlasted the Mahoney comparison, but a closer look at his record to date (100-60) produces a less flattering picture.

Subtract, for instance, the 28 wins Esherick has amassed against teams from the Big South, Southland, Southwestern Athletic (SWAC) and Mid-Eastern Athletic (MEAC) conferences (not including unscheduled meetings in tournament play), and three victories over Division III and NAIA schools, and his record is a less impressive 69-60.

The MEAC and SWAC are literally, according to recent Sagarin Ratings, the two worst basketball conferences in the nation. The Big South and Southland conferences check in at 27 and 29, respectively - out of 31. That's 28 wins against teams from four of the five least competitive conferences in Division I. Division III and NAIA opponents need no additional context.

The 20-win average that Lang touted last May was padded by about six games each season that were decided before tip-off.

More illuminating are Esherick's results against good competition: 38-42 in Big East play, 5-5 in the Big East Tournament, 9-10 against teams from the Big Ten, ACC, Pac-10 and SEC. (Georgetown has not played a Big 12 team during Esherick's tenure.)

Boiled down to its elements, Esherick's record is certainly not terrible, but it's far from great. It's just … average.

Even if we're to accept the bottom feeding as a legitimate component of Esherick's resume, his 20-win average has produced very little postseason glory.

His teams have only once advanced past the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament, and have never reached the Saturday game. He has earned only one NCAA Tournament bid. The Hoyas advanced to the Sweet 16 that year, defeating 15-seed Hampton in the second round. Hampton earned its NCAA berth by winning - no kidding - the MEAC title.

Last season, the Hoyas advanced to the NIT Final. It was an exciting run marked by impressive road wins against major conference teams. But a NIT Final run is bittersweet when the rest of the country is watching the Big Dance, and more so when Georgetown fans (no matter how unreasonable their postseason expectations) continue to suffer through the worst NCAA Tournament drought since the pre-Thompson era.

Beyond the numbers, Esherick's performance doesn't look any better.

Non-conference scheduling, after some early improvements in the Esherick Era, has completely regressed. Entering conference play last weekend, Georgetown's strength of schedule - a key metric used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee in awarding at-large berths - ranked last among all 326 Division I schools. Without an outstanding performance in conference play, Esherick effectively scheduled the Hoyas out of any reasonable chance for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament this season.

Program stability, in spite of the fact that Esherick is entrenched through the end of the decade, remains an issue. Three of the four members of the class of 2005 - the first true "Esherick" recruiting class - transferred. Two of his assistants, including Thompson's son Ronny, also left the program.

Esherick has also failed to unite and energize a fragmented fan base. Through last weekend, the Hoyas' attendance ranked among the worst in the Big East. Not surprising, given the schedule, but it remains compelling evidence of growing apathy among Hoya fans.

Esherick's fifth full season is still young, and he'll have at least five more after it - ample opportunity to turn things around and add some hardware of his own to the McDonough trophy cases. The results so far aren't awful. They're just not very Georgetown-like.

Georgetown - basketball and beyond - is accustomed to words like "elite" and "top 25." Five years old, Craig Esherick's program appears more comfortable with "mediocre" and "middle of the pack." A team once anointed "The Beasts of the East" is, for now, just another team.