"As a father it makes you proud that he has their respect because both those coaches are going to be in the Hall of Fame," Thompson said yesterday.
"At first, you get respect. Then you get fear. Fear is what we want to get back."
Then he says, laughing: "Now don't get Calhoun and Boeheim mad at my son. He knows he's got a long way to go. In fact, our roles are reversed now. John's the one who's always lecturing me. He cautions me, 'It's only a start.' Because his goals and objectives are large, too."
Thompson III now does as good a job of poor-mouthing as his father once did in his early underdog days at Georgetown. After beating St. John's rather easily this week, the Hoyas' coach said, "The difference between their [7-9] season and ours is that we've had some lucky bounces at the end of games and they haven't . . . I think we're getting better. That's what we have stressed: Get better.
"But we have a team full of freshmen. We're in the middle of a season. We can't take stock now."
"Can I run now?" asked Thompson, anxious to end the interview and start a long night of studying film of Boston College.
As he left, the coach expected to go without dinner. What he didn't know was that after the game, Pops had gone to stand in line at Taco Bell.
"John has the proper work ethic," his father said. "He's been around this his whole life. He's seen what it takes to succeed. I knew he'd be up late with the films. I got him a couple of Taco salads."
But John II didn't deliver the dinners to John III. Instead, he left them with an MCI Center security guard.
Got to hide. Can't get in the way. Can't give advice. Can't be too proud. Got to earn the respect before you resurrect that Hoyas fear. Don't want to give Calhoun and Boeheim any bulletin board fodder.
"John will change his style a lot when he [recruits] more talent," the father said. "When your bench is shallow, you want to play short games, games with less possessions. And he's doing it. That's a compliment."
For now, no two teams could look more different than Hoyas of the Thompsons II and III.
Pops tried to create chaos with pressure defense, gladly trading turnovers, fouls and collisions just so the game's tempo would shoot through the roof into a kind of madhouse version of basketball that the other team had never seen, but GU loved.
In contrast, the current Hoyas are more aesthetically pleasing on offense. John III loves back-door cuts, half-court precision and a constant rain of three-point shots from five players who all have permission to shoot from beyond the arc. Princeton, where the younger Thompson played and was an assistant coach under legendary Pete Carril, was famous for its long shooting. GU now launches even more. Bowman and Jeff Green, both 6-8 forwards, as well as Jonathan Wallace and junior Ashanti Cook all light it up.
So, center Roy Hibbert, a 7-2 freshman, often becomes the nightly wildcard. "We need for him to play well," says Thompson. Someday, he will. For now, he sometimes does. "He plays best," says Thomspon, "when the moon is full."
The current Thompson wears a natty suit, not a rumpled one like his dad wore for many years. He doesn't bait refs or brandish a towel like the old man. He only yells when his team is on defense, never when they have the ball. Unlike his autocratic father, who did most of the talking, the current GU bench is alive with contributions from reserves and assistant coaches.
In fact, except for their common work ethic, there is little similarity in tactical style between the father and son. The father was funny, sarcastic and controversial. The son is buttoned-down Ivy, polished with a Princeton wife and three small children.
Evens Pops concedes the contrast. "I tried to make the game ugly," he says. "John tries to make it pretty."
In fact, there's only one truly strong family basketball resemblance. But it's the one that both Thompsons, and all of Georgetown, wanted most desperately. You can find it, so far at least, by looking at the final score.
