And if you haven’t listened to or watched our GLOBL JAM recap pod, you absolutely should. We go through each of the Hoyas individually and discuss where we stand on each of them – whether we are buying, selling or holding stock after the tournament. We also drop our updated takes on whether the Hoyas will make the tournament this year, more on that below. We’ve also got full stats for the tournament here, so you can follow along as we go h/t to Jake Foote, the Excel magician.

Question: Has Malik Mack taken a step (particularly his shooting)?

Answer: TBD!

Perhaps the most important question heading into GLOBL JAM, and we did not necessarily get a definitive answer. Though we certainly got some data. As we noted in the preview, Mack shot 35% from three last season, though that was mainly bolstered by stronger non-conference shooting. In conference play, Mack shot just 27% from three on a little over five attempts per game. This team needs Mack to take a step, and a big part of that step has to come in the form of more consistent shooting.

So what did we see in Canada? Well, as always, that depends on who you ask or how you look at it. Statistically, Mack’s numbers look similar to his conference performance from last season, which was below expectations. He averaged 13.8 ppg on 30% shooting, 25% from three (6 attempts per game). Sound the alarm? Not quite. Context is necessary. There are the basic caveats: the team around Mack (at least offensively) looked a lot more like the team around him towards the end of last year, which had a lot of question marks offensively. Without two of arguably Georgetown’s three best offensive players, Mack was carrying an outsized portion of the offensive load. Presumably, the offense will look significantly different and less Mack-dependent, with KJ and Love on the floor. There’s also the caveat of playing five games in six days (including the pre-tournament scrimmage vs. Brazil). I’ll add another unconfirmed caveat that the FIBA ball looked to be giving a lot of players (on both the men’s and women’s sides), and I noted Malik as one of the primary victims of a potentially over-inflated or at least very-bouncy ball.

Even with those caveats, it has to be said, Mack was great in the Gold Medal Game. Mack’s line in that final matchup against the pesky and physical Brazil? 19 points on 6-15 40% overall, 3-8 (37%) from three, 4-5 from the line, 4 REB, 7 AST, 3 TO. And I’d feel fairly comfortable giving Malik another made three with a regular basketball (not whatever that FIBA crap was). That line will definitely work for Georgetown this season, assuming the impact we expect from KJ and Love.

So, in the end, we saw it. Once. That is enough to leave me intrigued and optimistic, if far from certain that Mack can take the next step. This remains an unanswered question, but I do feel better after seeing it on the floor than after the first three games of the tournament.

Question: What does the big rotation look like?

Answer: Largely what we saw, with some questions still to be answered…

This initially looked like it would be another unanswered question. Julius came out as a (somewhat) surprising starter in the first game against Japan. I think we’d all assumed that Vince would be in the pole position for the starting center, so when it was Juice in game one and he looked somewhat unstoppable on offense, the hype machine was working at full capacity.

It turns out that almost certainly had more to do with the opponent, Japan, and their lack of size and general talent, than anything. Though it should be noted that Vince did not look nearly as good as Julius in that first game. For the rest of the tournament, Vince was the starter and looks clearly to be the best center on the roster…for now. Vince’s first two games against Japan and Canada were anything but encouraging, but he really showed upside in the final two against Brazil. And did so in a way that Hoyas fans should be excited about. While playing a little too outside-in in the first two games, he was an absolute monster down low against Brazil. After getting outrebounded by Canada, a team with some high-major big bodies, Vince responded with 14 boards in two games against Brazil (he had seven in the first two and I legit think five of them came on one play).

Vince is clearly the starting center at this point and looks to be all that defensively. The question really is whether he can be a consistent offensive force. But even with lackluster offensive efforts against Japan and, to a lesser extent, Canada, he finished averaging 9.5 points per game and 5.3 rebounds. Bump up the rebounds slightly, and that will be just fine for this team.

Bigger questions remain regarding Julius, and we’ll dive into those below. At the PF spot, it looks to be Caleb’s to lose as predicted. And I don’t think he lost it. He had some rough shooting performances against Brazil in the last two games, but before that, he was shooting 40% from three and looked confident. I think fatigue was as significant a factor as anything in his late shooting woes. He also really responded on the glass against Brazil. I have no issues with where Caleb is, and I think there is actually some hope behind him in Jayden Fort. In our first look at Fort in a Hoya uniform, there were ups and downs, but he looked like a contributor. Cooley was not afraid to put him on the floor in crunch time, and he rewarded him in the win against Brazil, scoring two big buckets down the stretch, including an offensive rebound and put-back off a missed free throw.

I am also decently intrigued by Seal Diouf, who showed some flashes of being very solid. He still has a long way to go, but I think he’s likely to make significant strides as he gets more practice and playing time. There were windows of games, not long, but they were there, when Seal was Georgetown’s best big. That’s not a bad place to be after an exhibition tournament in August.

Question: Can anyone shoot?

Answer: Yes! But maybe not enough

As we noted in the preview, Georgetown shot 32% from three as a team last season, below the D-1 average. And that was with Micah going nuclear over the last month or so. Georgetown’s best new shooter, and potentially their best overall, is likely Langston Love, who sat this tournament out. So we did not necessarily expect to get a complete sense of this team’s shooting ability. But we hoped to get a sense of their shooting depth. We got a sense of who might be the most likely to make shots, but overall, the team struggled to shoot the ball. They finished the tournament 28-95 from three. That is just under 30%.

Before you freak out and sell your Final Four tickets, that deserves some context. Vince and Julius shot a combined 1 – 11 from three. If you take those shots out of the equation, which, until Julius shows he can actually make a three, I am quite happy to say he should not be taking them, the team shot 32%. That number also reflects Caleb’s 1-9 count in the two games against Brazil. I am not suggesting you discount that entirely, but I think legs played a factor in that, particularly in the last game. I am reasonably confident that Caleb was closer to the shooter in the first half of the tournament than in the latter part.

So there is some hope. We also saw some encouraging signs from guys who were question marks like Isaiah Abraham, who at 6-15 looked like he could absolutely hit open shots when they come (even if they don’t come frequently). Jeremiah Williams was also a plus shooter at 4-10 from three from the tournament and looked good, hitting open shots that mirrored what you’d expect him to see in the season.

Without two critical offensive options in KJ (who we are not projecting to be a big three-point threat, but can impact the quality of shots overall) and Love, a career 38% shooter from three, the answers to this question were not going to be definitive. We leave Canada with a better, and frankly more positive, sense of individual shooters on this team, but still wondering about their collective shooting.

Question: What does Cooley think he has in this team?

Answer: It’s complicated

Perhaps a better option than having me give my thoughts is to simply ask Coach himself. And that’s what we did! In case you are just popping up for Georgetown Hoops news, the Finger WAG was officially credentialed for the GLOBL JAM tournament and we were extremely grateful to be given the opportunity to talk directly with Coach Cooley after each game (just a massive shoutout to the Georgetown Program staff, coaches and players who were all incredibly gracious with their time and, in general, accommodating).

I’d definitely encourage you to listen to the comments from Coach to get a complete sense, but if I were to sum things up, it would be:

He thinks he has a very solid defensive team with offensive upside that needs seasoning and time to come together. That is one reason why I think this tournament was such a positive trip for Georgetown. As Coach mentioned, despite having no Freshmen, you had a bunch of guys who had played less than five games at the college level (and several played none). The late-game execution and attention to detail are not yet fully there (but you would not expect it to be in August).

Coach also talked about making the NCAA Tournament, which I think is a valid and achievable goal for this group. We will see how the team comes together when they are fully healthy, but this is a team whose ceiling is probably as high as a seven or eight seed in the tournament, with a floor as low as the mid-tier of the Big East. That’s a huge range of possible outcomes, obviously, but the floor is higher than I thought going into the tournament. This team is not playing on Wednesday in the Big East Tournament unless something goes horribly wrong. They are just too competitive and too solid to get punked in a weak year for the conference. Top four in the Big East may be a high-end, but not altogether insane projection. Though I caution you, it’s possible that top four in the BE is not enough for a tournament birth. The conference received five bids last season and is, in my mind, meaningfully worse.

Georgetown will have to squeeze some juice out of its improved non-conference schedule. All the more reason to hit the ground running in November and to get this important experience under their belt.

Question: Has Julius continued to progress since June?

Answer: Well…so..the thing is…look…you have to…sigh… No, I guess just, no

This was honestly probably the only negative from this tournament for me, and even then, I don’t think there is reason to panic…yet. I think this was a good gut-check on where Julius is, and indicates that he still has a ways to go before being the dominant college player across the board that we expect him to be.

Julius started against Japan and dominated. The hype train was teetering off the tracks. The rest of the tournament brought us all back down to earth (to mix about a jillion metaphors). Julius finished the tournament a +5, meaning the Hoyas were five points better than their opponents with Julius on the floor. Not bad, right? If you take out the game against Japan, Julius was a team-worst (by a lot) minus 22. It was just not a good tournament for him after the first game. The physicality of Canada and, more so, Brazil clearly got to him, and he was a big part of their rebounding issues. I think that impacted his game as a whole, and he just looked like a player without a lot of confidence by the end of the tournament. There are paths for him to improve meaningfully. And really, none of them are far-fetched. He needs time to develop. Hopefully, it happens this year, but it’s very possible he takes the whole year (hopefully remaining healthy) to really play his way into the dominant college big we think he can be. Hoya fans should prepare for that, as well as prepare for him to look more like the Japan-dominating version we saw in the first game. He’s going to absolutely cook smaller and worse competition in the cupcake non-conference portion. Until he adds some more strength and increases his motor, he’s going to struggle against the high-major bigs. I am no less high on Julius’s future; I am simply a bit more realistic about how long it will take to get there.

There are things he can do to accelerate that timeline. He has basically three months to the start of the season and should be working hard with strength coach, Ken White, whom we would like to give a major shoutout to, but know that he will not read this because he only reads the physical newspaper (respect). I also agree with Jake from our recap pod that they need to stash the three ball for now. I think he will ultimately be a stretch five, but he has not made a three-pointer this summer. Literally, he was 0-6 in this tournament and 0-4 at FIBA. He is so good with his back to the basket on the low block. I would focus on getting him more comfortable facing up to the basket around the lane and then extend out from there. We saw in FIBA that when he gets into a rhythm, he is tough to stop, and I think building his confidence from the inside out is a smart approach.

He also just needs to rebound better. Period, full stop.

How are you feeling post GLOBL JAM? Drop your takes and questions in the comments below!