The 2011–12 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University in the 2011–2012 NCAA Division I basketball season. They were led by John Thompson III and played their home games at the Verizon Center. They were members of the Big East Conference. Prior to the season, the Hoyas made a goodwill trip to China for several matches with local teams. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden attended their first game, a win over the Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons. Their second game, against the Bayi Rockets, ended in a brawl, causing the team to leave the court while Chinese fans threw garbage and debris. Georgetown won their final games against the Liaoning Dinosaurs and the Taiwanese national team without incident.
Before the season began, the team was picked to finish tenth in the Big East Conference standings. However, early road wins against ranked teams like Memphis, Alabama, and Louisville made the team one of the biggest surprises of the 2011–2012 season, elevating their ranking into the top ten in the nation. With a 12–6 conference record, they finished in a three-way tie for fourth place, with tie breakers placing them fifth, over South Florida but behind Cincinnati.
The team was ranked No. 15 in the seasons final Associated Press Poll and No. 17 in the postseason Coaches' Poll.
Season recap During the offseason, a major shakeup had taken place in the Georgetown roster. Three stars, guard Austin Freeman and forwards Julian Vaughn and Chris Wright, had graduated in 2011, and sophomore reserve guard Vee Sanford had transferred to Dayton after the end of the previous season. Joining the team as freshmen was a much-heralded recruiting classKilgore, Adam, "Georgetown’s Tyler Adams, his career cut short by heart ailment, gets one last start," washingtonpost.com, March 6, 2015. consisting of Mikeal Hopkins, Otto Porter, and Greg Whittington at forward, Jabril Trawick at guard, and Tyler Adams at center, and, after sitting out the previous season, forward Aaron Bowen also began play as a redshirt freshman. Returning upperclassmen were seniors Jason Clark at guard and Henry Sims at center, junior Hollis Thompson at forward, and sophomores Moses Ayegba at center, Nate Lubick at forward, and Markel Starks at guard. Also returning was sophomore John Caprio, a walk-on playing for his second year as a reserve guard. The loss of Freeman, Vaughn, and Wright left the Hoyas with a young and inexperienced team with 10 freshmen and sophomores on the roster for the 2011–12 season and they began the year unranked in the national polls. Expectations for the season were lower than they had been for the past few years, and before the season began, the Big East's coaches picked the Hoyas to finish in 10th place in the 16-team conference.espn.com Anonymous, "Markel Starks, No. 12 Georgetown edge No. 4 Louisville," Associated Press, December 28, 2011.
Goodwill tour of China For the first time in their history, the Hoyas went on an overseas trip to play a series of exhibition games – something the NCAA permitted once every four years – visiting China for 10 days in August 2011. Georgetown intended the team's 10-day goodwill tour to be an athletic, cultural, and educational exchange to promote Georgetown University internationally, and scheduled two games in Beijing – billed together as a "China-U.S. Basketball Friendship Match" – followed by two in Shanghai, meeting three Chinese teams and one from Taiwan. The Hoyas won the first game, with Vice President Joe Biden looking on.Wang, gene, "Georgetown basketball exhibition in China ends in brawl," washingtonpost.com, August 18, 2011.
The second game, against the Bayi Rockets, a military team from the Chinese Basketball Association composed of People's Liberation Army personnel, was a rough one, with 11 fouls called against Bayi and 28 against Georgetown in the first half alone. The rough play continued in the second half and the game took on an uglier character, as at one point Bayi forward Xu Zhonghao approached head coach John Thompson III as he stood near the bench and yelled at him at close range, and play had to be stopped again a few moments later when Bayi player Wang Lei was called for a technical foul and vociferously disputed the call. Finally, with 9:32 left to play in the game and the score tied at 64-64, Bayi center-forward Hu Ke fouled Jason Clark, Clark complained to him about it, and the two began shoving each other. Both benches cleared, and an estimated six separate fights took place on the court. Members of the crowd, one of them armed with a stanchion, came on the court to join the fight, and some people threw chairs at the Georgetown players. The Chinese officiating crew fled, and Chinese security personnel made no effort to intervene and calm the crowd. Fearing for his players' safety, head coach John Thompson III pulled his team off the court as Chinese fans bombarded the Hoyas and their fan section with water bottles. The game never was finished, and no box score for it was posted. An unidentified United States Department of State official and a spokesman for the Embassy of China in Washington, D.C., both called the brawl "unfortunate."
Despite the ugly incident, the Hoyas continued their trip. Before leaving Beijing, the Georgetown team and Bayi players met to exchange apologies and parted company on friendlier terms. Boosted by the infamy of the brawl in Beijing, Georgetown's next game, played in Shanghai, was a hot ticket, and Chinese officials and security personnel kept tight control of the game and the crowd to ensure that nothing untoward happened. Georgetown won both games in Shanghai without any additional controversy, and Hoya coaches and players spent time at a special basketball clinic for Chinese youth, finishing the trip on a positive note.Yiu, Karson, "Basketball Brawl Makes Georgetown Hoyas a Hot Ticket in China," abcnews.go.com, August 21, 2011.Staihar, Janet, "Georgetown plays Taiwan team ... in Shanghai," thegeorgetowndish.com, August 23, 2011.
Non-conference schedule
A little less than three months after returning from China, Georgetown began the 2011–12 season with two easy wins at the Verizon Center. In the first, over a Savannah State team coached by former Hoya player Horace Broadnax, Henry Sims came off the bench to score a game-high and career-high 19 points and Hollis Thompson added 13, while Otto Porter grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.espn.com Anonymous, "Georgetown 83, Savannah St. 54," Associated Press, November 12, 2011.espn.com Savannah State vs. Georgetown – Box Score – November 12, 2011 – ESPN The second win was in a game played at the Verizon Center as part of the "Opening Round" of the Maui Invitational Tournament, a newly established round of play in which four teams headed for the tournament on Maui played at home against four mid-major teams which would remain in the Mainland United States to compete with one another in a parallel tournament of their own while the Maui-bound teams played the main tournament in Hawaii. Georgetown's opening-round opponent was UNC Greensboro, and in defeating the Spartans Hollis Thompson scored a game-high 19 points, Jason Clark scored 17 off the bench, and Markel Starks also came off the bench for the first double-digit scoring performance of his collegiate career, adding 11 points.espn.com Anonymous, "Georgetown 86, UNC-Greensboro 45," Associated Press, November 14, 2011.espn.com UNC Greensboro vs. Georgetown – Box Score – November 14, 2011 – ESPN
Georgetown then traveled to Lahaina, Hawaii, for the Maui Invitational Tournament proper, facing No. 14 Kansas, the young Georgetown team's first serious challenge, in the first round. Both teams got off to poor offensive starts; the Jayhawks missed eight of their first 12 shots and the Hoyas did not score for the first 3 minutes 52 seconds and hit only four of their first 15 shots. Down 6-0 before their first field goal, the Hoyas came back to take a 12–9 lead with 10:54 left in the half, then fell behind again before tying the game at 19–19 with 8:36 left. After that, Kansas pulled away to a 32–26 lead before the Hoyas again closed the gap, and the Jayhawks went to the locker room at halftime clinging to a 37–35 lead. In the second half, Kansas extended its lead to 44–39 with 17:31 left in the game, but the underdog Hoyas again came back to take a 48–47 lead with 12:28 to play. Sixteen seconds later, Kansas junior forward Thomas Robinson – who finished with a double-double that included a game-high 20 points (12 of them on dunks) and 12 rebounds – scored a two-point jumper that gave the Jayhawks the lead for good. The Hoyas never trailed by more than five points the rest of the way, however, and Kansas did not clinch the win until Kansas junior guard Travis Releford sank two free throws with 16 seconds left to give the Jayhawks a 67–63 lead, then grabbed the rebound when Jason Clark missed on a three-point jumper with eight seconds to play. Kansas prevailed 67–63, with Jason Clark leading the Hoyas with 15 points, Hollis Thompson contributing 14, and Otto Porter adding 12.espn.com Anonymous, "Thomas Robinson's 20, late free throws help Kansas win Maui opener," Associated Press, November 22, 2011.espn.com Georgetown vs. Kansas – Box Score – November 21, 2011 – ESPNespn.com Georgetown vs. Kansas – Play-by-Play – November 21, 2011 – ESPN