Over the Hilltop

Georgetown center Greg Monroe declared his intention over the weekend to enter the NBA draft and hire an agent. Monroe’s decision to forego his final two years of college eligibility affects both his future and that of the team he leaves behind.  This post will focus on Monroe, while a longer look at the Hoyas, both next year and beyond, will follow.

Monroe’s Career

Monroe’s announcement marks the end of a brief college career full of individual brilliance but  middling collective results.  Monroe was Big East Rookie of the Year in 2008-09, but the team crashed after a brief top 10 appearance,  barely cracking .500 on the season, squabbling in the locker room, and petering out in the first round of the NIT.  He made first team All-Big East in this past year,  averaging 16.1 points and 9.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.5 blocks per game. He hit a game-winner against Temple, hung a 24 and 15 on Butler, dished out 12 assists against Providence, and matured markedly from his freshman campaign. Down the stretch, Monroe showed consistency that had eluded him earlier in his career, particularly shining in the Marquette game in the Big East Tournament.

Still, inconsistency plagued his team generally.  On the season, the Hoyas knocked off several top-10 foes including Duke and Butler, both eventual national finalists, and were rated as high as number 7. Georgetown also turned in some stinkers, losing to South Florida and Rutgers in particular. The post-season was a similarly mixed bag: Georgetown made an inspiring and often dominant run to the final of the Big East Tournament but then flamed out in the NCAA tournament, losing badly to Ohio, a 14 seed. In short, Monroe gave Hoya fans plenty to cheer about, but the team, Monroe included, left its fans wondering what might have been.

Fans will wonder further when it comes to Monroe’s future.  Had Monroe returned, Georgetown would likely have begun next season ranked in the top 5 in most polls, while Monroe both would have been a contender for national player of the year and would have had a third opportunity to forge a postseason legacy absent from his first two years. This tantalizing possibility undoubtedly reminds some Georgetown fans of Jeff Green’s protracted draft decision in 2007, when it seemed possible, even likely, that Green would return for another season on the Hilltop and lead the Hoyas to a national championship. Of course, Green had already led Georgetown to a Sweet 16 appearance, a Final Four, and a Big East championship before, as it turned out, departing for the draft.  While Monroe seems like a very decent person capable of brilliance on the floor, he departs school without significant postseason success to his credit. Hoya loyalists will cheer him on in the pros but, years from now, will be left with few signature memories of his time in the blue and gray.

Monroe’s Prospects

Monroe will likely be drafted between numbers 7 and 14 in the upcoming draft, according to most projections.  Which NBA teams will be drafting in that range will not be determined until mid-May, when the lottery drawing is held.  If all plays out according to form (including the Knicks’ trade of their pick), the teams most likely to take Monroe will be the Pistons, Hornets, Raptors, and Rockets. Depending on trades and the winds of free agency, the Clippers, Jazz, Grizzlies, and Pacers, could count themselves among that group as well.

Monroe is a unique talent, less athletic than some of his peers but more skilled and with a much keener understanding of the game than most. NBA scouts, like Hoya fans, sometimes question his passivity, but apparently have been impressed by his development this season.  Monroe still needs to develop his right hand, a more reliable jump shot, and a bit of a tougher attitude around the basket. Still, his court vision and versatile skill set will make him a valuable asset on some NBA roster. If drafted in the lottery, Monroe will be the third such Hoya in four years, following Green and Roy Hibbert.

Best of luck to Greg, more on the remaining Hoyas to follow.

Syracuse forward Wesley Johnson and North Carolina sophomore Ed Davis both declared for the NBA draft today.  These two announcements may be a feather on the scale against Greg Monroe entering the draft; both have been projected ahead of Monroe, meaning that their entry pushes Monroe down tthe draft board a bit. Several others, including West Virginia sophomore Devin Ebanks, have also declared, but that bears even less on Monroe’s decision.

All indications are that Monroe’s decision will be his own, but the fact that all eight players projected ahead of him in the draft have declared their entry certainly doesn’t hurt the odds that he’ll be back on the Hilltop next year.

On the Monroe front, only tea leaves to read:

• The consensus among draftniks (check out here and here) appears to be that Monroe will be roughly the ninth pick in the draft, behind John Wall, Evan Turner, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Al-Farouq Aminu, Cole Aldrich, Ed Davis, and Wesley Johnson. To date, only five (Wall, Turner, Cousins, Aminu, and Aldrich) have declared, and rumors suggest Davis and Johnson may return for another year of school.  Perhaps Monroe will get lured in by rising draft stock if those two opt out of the draft; the prospect of Syracuse getting Johnson back but the Hoyas without Monroe is nauseating.
  
• Recent snippits from ESPN’s various gurus suggest that they’re not convinced that Monroe will go:
  • Andy Katz, assuming the Hoyas will have monroe and projecting them as #7 in the nation next season (probably an under-rate, as long as Ohio isn’t on the schedule): “I didn’t get a sense Sunday night that Greg Monroe is definitely gone.”
  • Chad Ford, “He’s a different kid. Very humble. Likes college. Wants to keep improving. I think it wouldn’t be an awful idea [to return to school]. But if he declared, my guess is that he goes somewhere between 8 and 14.”

*As noted previously,  NCAA rules allow underclassmen who declare but do not retain an agent to provisionally test the draft waters and return to school if they so choose.  The deadline for returning to school is May 8, meaning that, if Monroe provisionally declares, the Monroe Watch may be 32 days from ending.  Given that Monroe’s draft stock is relatively certain, though, the odds of a provisional draft declaration appear to be somewhat lower.