Georgtown Hoyas' John Thompson III, Otto Porter Jr. Earn Honors

The Thompson family, and Georgetown University, is the beginning, and the end, of the Big East Conference.

John Thompson III was awarded Big East Coach of the Year in the Big East’s last season before the departure of the Catholic 7, while his father earned the conferences first Coach of the Year honor following the 1979-80 season.

The Big East is now a mess; Notre Dame has jumped ship for the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Catholic 7 have taken their talents and the Big East name with them and the future membership of the conference is unknown.

Thompson III, or JT III as he is more commonly known, is ready to move on.

“This will be a very good league, a league (Big East founder) Mr. Dave Gavitt will look down and smile upon. It will be a conference my dad and the other great coaches likeLou Carnesecca and Rollie Boeheim will begrudgingly smile about it.”

Georgetown sophomore forward Otto Porter Jr. was awarded Big East Player of the Year for leading the Hoyas to a shared piece of the conference title along with Louisville and Marquette.

Porter finished second in the Big East in scoring with 18.1 points per game, fifth in rebounding with 7.3 per game and second in three-point shooting (44.1 percent). He is expected to enter the NBA draft and forgo his junior season.

With the state of the Big East, who wouldn’t make that decision.

John Engel is a college basketball writer for Rant Sports, covering the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences. John works for ESPNLA 710 AM radio in addition to Rant Sports. Follow: @engelsportsguy.