Mike Wise: Georgetown Hoyas' Rapid Growth Results in Some Pains

Summers, conversely, came to Georgetown highly touted. Just last month the junior was projected to go as high as the top five picks in a mock draft, but the Hoyas' slide has mirrored his own in cyberspace -- Summers's status has fallen, to where he's now projected at No. 13.

"I don't really remember me and Roy getting into it over that," Summers said on Thursday. "But as a group of players, [friction] happens sometimes. The chemistry was fine; it was just competitive nature if anything. Me and Roy never really had a bad relationship or anything. There wasn't any question it was Roy's team."

Still, sometimes it feels as if there are two Georgetown programs trying to coexist: The prime-time hoops factory that prep phenoms want to play for again, and the one rebuilt by the heart-and-soul players Thompson either inherited or had to recruit because all the big-time kids were already signed.

Kids like Jessie Sapp, the only senior on this team and maybe the last holdover from that era. He's also the player who sat the second half in the loss to Cincinnati at home last Saturday after Thompson yanked his starters in the first half. The emotional Sapp let it be known he was not happy about his coach's decision at the time.

"There are a lot of emotions running around, but everything's fine," Thompson said.

Like many of the players who rebuilt the Hoyas -- Jeff Green, Tyler Crawford, Jonathan Wallace and Hibbert -- Sapp wasn't thought of as a premier talent coming out of high school.

Sophomore Chris Wright, who finished the Cincinnati game, came to Georgetown as a McDonald's all-American. He was the first boys' basketball player since Adrian Dantley to be named All-Met three times. He's used to putting up shots, having averaged 30 points per game his senior year at St. John's College High School.

Those mind-sets are partly why the two exchanged heated words near the end of the game at Duke on Jan. 17, when Georgetown's 1-6 slide began. Two people with knowledge of the situation told me Sapp and Wright also exchanged more than fist-bumps in the locker room afterward, although J.T. III called any reports of a ruckus "inaccurate," and the players denied any kind of fisticuffs when asked Thursday.

"Nothin' happened between me and him," Sapp said. "We're fine. We're going to agree on certain things and disagree on certain things -- that doesn't mean we were actually in there fist-fightin' or doin' all this crazy stuff."

"We have no issues whatsoever," Wright said, repeating the words three times. "We have no issues."

Look, whatever has gone on behind closed doors in McDonough Gym or elsewhere, this is all a natural progression of a program that was bound to experiencing growing pains after going from mediocrity to the Final Four in three years.

The benefits include more highly coveted recruits committing to the Hilltop, much like blue-chip kids once committed to Thompson's father's program. With more athleticism and fewer projects, the ability to quicken the tempo and play a more aesthetically appealing brand of ball attracts that kind of kid even more.