College Basketball
Though Georgetown typically recruited defensive-oriented big men such as Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Iverson's future teammate Dikembe Mutombo with full scholarships, Coach John Thompson felt Iverson deserved a second chance after his time in prison and could not pass up the opportunity to recruit a talent like Iverson's. Iverson kept up the Georgetown tradition of defense by averaging three steals per game and winning the Big East Defensive Player of the Year award in both of his two years at the University.
In his first season at Georgetown, Iverson won the Big East Rookie of the Year award and was named to the All Rookie Tournament First Team. That season, Iverson led the Hoyas to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament, where they would lose to North Carolina.
In his second (and final) season at Georgetown, Iverson would lead the team to a Big East Championship and all the way to the Elite 8 round of the NCAA tournament, where they would lose to the University of Massachusetts. He ended his college career as the Hoyas' all-time leader in career scoring average, at 22.9 points per game. Iverson would be named as a First Team All American.
Following the conclusion of his sophomore year, Iverson declared for the NBA Draft. He would be the first player to leave Georgetown early for the NBA under Coach Thompson.
Read more about this topic: Allen Iverson
Famous quotes containing the words college and/or basketball:
“Placing too much importance on where a child goes rather than what he does there . . . doesn’t take into account the child’s needs or individuality, and this is true in college selection as well as kindergarten.”
—Norman Giddan (20th century)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)