Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Washington, DC–
When the Inaugural Crown Basketball Tournament was announced and then Georgetown announced as a participant, we had to ask ourselves why the Hoyas? They did have a solid season until Thomas Sorber went down with an injury, but why not just call it as season and take this improvement from last year and build on it? Not sure what Ed Cooley’s thought process of playing in the City of Sin in late March means for this team.
A newly-created, single-elimination postseason tournament — created by Fox and held entirely in Las Vegas during Final Four week — puts together a field of high-major teams that didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
One other major issue is that the Hoyas will now have to play without Sophomore Drew Fielder, who just this week entered the portal. This leaves Jayden Epps and Micah Peavy as the only real threats for the Hoyas and for quite a few games this season, Cooley has not been able to get players to produce night after night. He can possibly go to Malik Mack as a third scoring option, but his bench is going to be very limited with options with Fielder gone from the team.
The College Basketball Crown selection process included auto bids for the top two teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 who didn’t make the NCAA tournament. From there, the event had 10 at-large invites at its disposal.
The inaugural field comprises Arizona State, Butler, Boise State, Cincinnati, Colorado, DePaul, George Washington, Georgetown, Nebraska, Oregon State, Tulane, UCF, USC, Utah, Villanova and Washington State.
The Hoyas game on March 31st will be part of four games that day, with the Hoyas playing first at 12pm PST.
The Crown goes head-to-head on television with the NIT’s semifinals and title game at Hinkle Fieldhouse — making for an interesting amount of college hoops every night leading up to the Final Four.
So, if you aren’t tired of Hoops in a few short weeks, this is a tournament with some good teams in the field… and some that should be home regrouping for next season.
