Hoops harbinger

DeMatha High School’s Austin Freeman, one of the top college basketball prospects in the class of 2007, sat in front of a room full of classmates, teachers, parents and reporters in the Hyattsville school’s library last week and calmly and confidently made the most important choice of his young life.

“I narrowed it down to four schools: Georgetown, Maryland, North Carolina State and Notre Dame,” Freeman said before bowing his head for the standard hat-donning drama. “I’m going to attend Georgetown.”

Freeman’s choice represented more than simply a high-profile local commitment for coach John Thompson III and the Hoyas. When the 6-foot-4 shooting guard pulled on a blue and gray cap, it symbolized more than just the long-awaited reconciliation between the Hilltop and the area’s most storied prep program. Because of an ancient rift between Hall of Fame coaches John Thompson II and Morgan Wootten, the Hoyas hadn’t received a commitment from a DeMatha player since 1971.

Freeman’s decision provided a snapshot of the fundamental power shift that seems to be taking place between the area’s premier college basketball programs. The pendulum of local pre-eminence that has been poised for more than a decade over College Park seems to be swinging back toward the Hilltop.

The message is simple and identical, whether it comes from coaches and commentators, current players or coveted prepsters, recruiting analysts or casual fans: The Hoyas are white hot.

“Most of my peers and the guys I play ball with are talking about Georgetown,” Freeman said. “They’re a real hot program right now.”

And that positive buzz isn’t restricted to players.

“Georgetown is back,” Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said during the recent Big East media day at Madison Square Garden. “What John was able to accomplish with his team last season was extraordinary, and they have basically everybody back. Our goal and expectation is to win the conference. But beware the Hoyas, this season and beyond, because John’s got some serious momentum and energy going down there.”

Expectations for this season’s Georgetown squad, which returns all six players who started games during last season’s 19-13 campaign, differ considerably depending upon the source. Calhoun picked the Hoyas to finish second in the new-look, 16-team leviathan that is the Big East.

Collectively, the league’s coaches picked the Hoyas to finish sixth behind Villanova, Connecticut, Louisville, Syracuse and West Virginia. And though the Hoyas were tabbed 18th and 20th by publications Lindy’s and the Sporting News respectively, they were not ranked in the preseason Associated Press poll.

“I certainly understand why people would question us,” said senior forward Brandon Bowman, who led the Hoyas in scoring (15.1 points) last season. “Yeah, we were better than people expected last year. And there’s been some recruiting success. But in our opinion, we still haven’t done much. We still haven’t made the NCAAs since I’ve been here. We lost our last five conference games last year. The excitement’s nice, but we can do much more. It’s time for us to take the next step.”

And in some respects, until Georgetown takes that next step and returns to the NCAA tournament, it seems absurd to claim the Hoyas are threatening to swipe the local spotlight from a Maryland team that won a national title just four seasons ago.

“I think John’s doing a great job at Georgetown, but it’s far too early to put Georgetown in the same elite class with Maryland,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said last week. “In the last five years, Maryland’s been to two Final Fours and won a national title. Georgetown’s only made one tournament appearance in the last five years.”

While true, such a simplification worships the past while ignoring the present signposts that often are harbingers. Last season, while Thompson was busy resurrecting a scuttled ship by leading the Hoyas to the verge of an NCAA tournament berth, the Terrapins endured their third consecutive slide in winning percentage and missed the tournament for the first time in a dozen years.

And this season, Maryland returns basically the same cast that has propelled the program in the wrong direction for three years less troublesome though talented point man John Gilchrist and top recruit Shane Clark, whom the Terps lost to Villanova in a transcript debacle.

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