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Post-Racial Florida Gulf Coast Hits Georgetown With Some Bizarro Hoya Paranoia

Posted by | Published on: | Updated on May 29, 2017 CommentsComments (204)

Florida Gulf Coast flipped the entire landscape of the NCAA tournament with its 78-68 win against Georgetown. The score doesn’t really begin to tell the story, unless you consider what second-seeded Georgetown is in this game and the fact that No. 15-seed Florida Gulf Coast was making its tournament debut in the program’s sixth year of existence and second year of postseason eligibility.

But whoever said college basketball lost its fizz had obviously never seen this Florida Gulf Coast group, which had white guys flying all over the place Friday night in what had to be – along with RGIII and Russell Wilson putting the “black QB” ghettoization to rest – the most post-racial athletic exhibition on this side of the millennium.

Don’t believe me, just watch…

Remember this is Georgetown we’re talking about here. That’s John Thompson’s son out there coaching (Georgetown has now lost to a double-digit seed in their last four tourney appearances. The last time they made it to the second weekend of the tournament was when they reached the Final Four in 2007).

This was Bizarro Hoya Paranoia. Georgetown built its rep and mystique on harassing and flying by and through squads with a pro-black abandon. That’s what FGCU just did to them. They went “40 Minutes of Hell” on the Hoyas. Jaws are still dropped from this.

Florida Gulf Coast led by as many as 19. The Hoyas made their run late in the game, cutting the deficit to eight inside three minutes to go. It turned into a free throw/3-point shooting contest, with the squads trading two points for three, and that was just so Georgetown could catch up and make it interesting. That was just to make people momentarily feel like their brackets weren’t shot to hell.

But they are, and these cats aren’t apologizing for it. Sherwood Brown, who led the Eagles with 24 points on the night, was all the way turned up from the start. He wasn’t a one-man show, either.

Brett Comer was as impressive as any point guard we’ve seen so far in this tournament with his 12 points and eight assists. Toss the stats, though. Those dimes passed the eye test just like the jams did.

These are mostly local products, too. So, shoutout to the state of Florida putting three quality programs in the tournament with the Gators, Hurricanes and Eagles.

For all the confidence Florida Gulf Coast showed out there, Georgetown was timid. Reggie Miller kept making the point during the broadcast that FGCU beat Miami and hung with Duke for a half early on in the season, that it made sense for them not to be intimidated. Len Elmore picked up on the Hoyas’ body language and suggested maybe it was the higher seed showing some fear.

We thought we were hip to FGCU in our look at the South region before the tournament started , but no one really knew how serious these dudes were until this.

Now look at your bracket and picture this…

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