While coaches maniacally scrambled on Sunday night to obtain as much information as possible on their opposition after NCAA Selection Committee unveiled the 68-team field on Sunday night, Georgetown coach John Thompson III was even more overwhelmed.
He and his staff learned they will have to prepare for two opponents.
With the newly implemented First Four in which the tournament field was expanded to 68 teams, it means that two teams will have to wait on the results from a pair of at-large games that will take place Tuesday and Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio.
Georgetown is one. West Virginia is the other.
Top-seeded Ohio State and Pittsburgh also are unaware of their opponents, but let’s face it: Neither is overly concerned since a No. 16 has never toppled a No. 1.
The Hoyas were awarded a No. 6 seed, largely due to their late-season swoon without injured point guard Chris Wright, and will head to Chicago later this week for their second-round matchup. It'll be Friday night against either USC or VCU, two of the final at-large teams in the field. Georgetown’s opponent won’t be known until about 11:30 ET on Wednesday night.
West Virginia, the No. 5 seed in the East region, will take on the winner of Tuesday night’s UAB-Clemson matchup on Thursday night in Tampa.
"It's a different situation," Thompson said.
Thompson didn't criticize the selection committee, but it certainly didn’t do him any favors. Sure, he faces a team, whether it be USC or VCU, that plays 48 hours prior in another city, but it's not easy preparing a bunch of college kids to face two teams.
"That's what we're going to have to do, though," Thompson said. "Because I don't want them going into practice on Thursday and introducing the team we're playing for the first time."
While the two teams both play primarily man-to-man defense, they are a contrast in styles to some degree. VCU loves to utilize its athleticism to press and run while USC is far more dependent on its interior play.
Thompson basically has split his coaching staff in half — with half focusing on USC and the others drawing the VCU assignment.
"I'll spend my time trying to learn about both of them, to be honest," Thompson said. "I've already watched a bunch of tape on USC."
Thompson spent most of Monday with his team focusing on VCU while Tuesday will be geared mostly towards USC.
Thompson said he already has some familiarity with VCU and has seen the Rams a few times this season, but he got his first look at Kevin O'Neill's USC program shortly after he saw the draw.
There's a school of thought that Georgetown will have the edge because the Hoyas will be well rested while either VCU or USC comes in having played two days prior.
But this happens throughout the NCAA tournament — teams play two games in three days, and in the conference tournaments, many of them play on three, four or five consecutive nights (see: UConn).
I’d argue that Georgetown is actually at a disadvantage since the winner of the First Four will enter with momentum — and that team's coaching staff already has done the scouting work on Georgetown since it knows the Hoyas are up next.
But Thompson III isn't sweating this out, especially because he understands that his team — and specifically the health of his senior point guard Wright — is far more important than the team on the other side of the court. Whoever it winds up being.
"As much as we have to prepare for the opposition, we have to worry about ourselves right now," Thompson said. "It's all about you."
"Having this problem," Thompson added, "is much better than spring recruiting."
