With Vernon Macklin transferring to Florida (I can't believe he's leaving because of competition with Greg Monroe, as some seem to intimate), and Jeremiah Rivers also transferring, Georgetown is beginning to look like a young team.
From the Hoya:
With the graduation of four seniors, the Hoyas are left with just four players who played significant minutes last season — junior guard Jessie Sapp, sophomore forward DaJuan Summers and freshmen guards Austin Freeman and Chris Wright....
Rivers scored a career-high nine points in a December game against Fairfield, and he added four rebounds and five assists. He dished out a career-high seven assists in the first round of the NCAA tournament his freshman year against Belmont.
In addition to the four returning regulars, Georgetown will bring in four highly-touted recruits. Three big men, highlighted by 6-foot-10 Greg Monroe, will be joined by 6-foot-2 guard Jason Clark, who rivals.com lists as the 12th best shooting guard in his class.
And the Washington Post:
Rivers is the fifth player to leave Georgetown since October 2006. All five players -- Josh Thornton, Marc Egerson, Tay Spann, Macklin and Rivers -- were part of Thompson's first two recruiting classes at Georgetown. Only Sapp and Summers remain with the team.
I can't come up with a reason why the men's college basketball scene has been so volatile in the past few years; I don't remember this many transfers in the 90's, and coaches still got fired, players still were dissatisfied with their playing time.
Does the volatility have anything to do with the one and done players in school? Guys like Greg Monroe - and yes, he'd be a little less of a straight-to-NBA lock as Derrick Rose and OJ Mayo would have been - will demand playing time from the coaches because of their talent. And future one (or two) years-and-done players will see where they will get the best exposure/ playing time mix for scouts to project them to the next level.
That doesn't at all speak to the transfers among the middle and lower level schools; are there problems with athletes staying eligible? Are they committing to schools to early? Or are the players acting like amateur free agents, looking for better or more secure places to maximize their ballin' years?
Whatever it is, there seems to be something going on.