Georgetown Hoyas Coach John Thompson III’s Style on Endangered Species List

Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

There has been a lot of talk about how to fix the broken game that is college basketball. Things like, you know, actually calling fouls, shortening the shot-clock and the like have all been thrown out as suggestions to increase scoring and reduce the amount of people complaining about the quality of the game.

All of the suggestions, though, seem to be targeting coaches who prefer to micromanage games rather than let the athletes run around like the talented-beasts that they truly are.

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There is not a coach who prefers slow, methodical basketball in the entire world more than John Thompson III. The Georgetown Hoyas coach is known to run a Princeton-style offense, but actually refused to acknowledge that is what he was doing this past season. That was despite the fact that he has openly run that style in the past, so I am not too sure why he would start denying its use now.

If any of the proposed rule-changes were to ever get passed, Thompson would certainly be forced to change his game plan. Gone would be the days of dribbling a basketball for 30 seconds and only then starting his offense (a slight exaggeration). In its place, Thompson would have to do the unthinkable — let the highly-recruited, super-athletes he brought to Georgetown take advantage of their amazing abilities.

Thompson is a very, very good coach who just so happens to coach his team to play in a very, very boring way. There are no bonus points for winning pretty, but I wouldn’t mind Thompson relying less on his mental-coaching abilities and a little bit more on the athletes he brings to his program.

Not an indictment on the coach, but a suggestion. And if the proposed rule-changes every get changed — possibly an order from our beloved NCAA.

 

Joe is a Senior Writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @JosephNardone

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