Davidson, Baylor (NIT), Ohio, Virginia Commonwealth, North Carolina State, and now, Florida Gulf Coast. The list is damning, an indisputable condemnation of John Thompson III’s postseason failures since that astounding run to the 2007 Final Four.

Just one week after taking home Big East Coach of the Year honors for leading his young Hoyas to a share of the Big East regular season title, Thompson’s team crumbled when it mattered most, as they were summarily undressed by No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast 78-68.

All of a sudden, Georgetown’s stalwart leader was a shell-shocked version of himself. “More than anyone on this earth I’ve tried to analyze it, think about it, look at it, think about what we should do differently, and I don’t know,” he said of the recent postseason failure.

Thompson won the award for instilling a sense of toughness unparalleled in the Big East this year. The old school Hoya defense of his father’s day was on full display this season. Until Friday.

A team composed mainly of sophomores and freshmen, with just two juniors and no seniors, played beyond their years. A great deal of the time, we forgot there was a supposed youth void on this team. Until Friday.

A national player of the year candidate in sophomore Otto Porter Jr. looked close to unstoppable and the pieces around him looked to be perfect complements to his all-around game. Until Friday.

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A No. 2 seed, while a significant honor, does not mean all that much for these Georgetown Hoyas. Their unceremonious exits to double-digit seeds over the past three seasons have made sure of that.

But rather than discouraging the Hoyas, the past results have lit a fire under them, indicating just how difficult it is to get past that first weekend.

“We on a mission,” sophomore guard Jabril Trawick said. “We definitely thought we should have won the Big East but now we trying to make a deep run in the tournament, starting with Florida Gulf Coast. We got to handle business.”

Needless to say, they will not be taking this evening’s opponent—Florida Gulf Coast—lightly, despite their limited résumé. The Fort Myers school is entering just its second year of postseason eligibility and won the Atlantic Sun conference to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

They’re so small that their media contingent for the tournament featured just one beat reporter on Thursday: Naples Daily News’s Adam Fisher. “This is a huge deal for this school that didn’t exist 17 years ago,” Fisher told Vox.

The majority of Georgetown’s attention will be on senior forward Sherwood Brown, this season’s Atlantic Sun Player of the Year. In some respects, he is similar to Otto Porter Jr. with his do-everything style. But Brown, of course, is nowhere near the talent level of Georgetown’s Wooden Award candidate.

According to Fisher, the Eagles are balanced, with a number of players leading a balanced scoring attack. They do most of their damage in transition, as head coach Andy Enfield (married to a supermodel) throws a number of defensive sets at opponents to force steals.

“They don’t have a traditional big man in the middle,” Fisher said. “But they like to shoot the three and they love to run.”

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The Georgetown Hoyas were named a two seed, as the 68-team NCAA tournament field was announced yesterday. Though fans in Charlottesville, College Park, and Lexington may be irate with the decisions of the tournament committee, everything looks just fine here on the Hilltop. Georgetown is firmly on the two-line, seeded seventh overall with their first matchup on Friday against upstart Florida Gulf Coast.

Big East compatriot Louisville, riding their ten-game winning streak, grabbed the top overall seed, playing in the Midwest region. The other one seeds were Indiana, Kansas, and Gonzaga. The Hoyas are in the South region, Kansas’s section of the draw, along with three and four-seeds Florida and Michigan. This region has its share of quality matchups, the most notable being a pair of first round meetings between powerhouse programs. In an eight-nine matchup, North Carolina plays Villanova for a shot at either Kansas or Western Kentucky. UCLA plays Minnesota, who comes into the tournament underseeded on the eleven-line.

Head Coach John Thompson III said, “I don’t go into it worrying about what we’re going to be seeded, it’s the opposition.”

The Hoyas first opponent, FGCU, is no pushover. FGCU is dangerous for a fifteen seed, having beaten ACC Champion Miami earlier this year. Lurking in the Hoyas half of the region is the third-seeded Florida Gators, the favorite in Vegas to advance to the Final Four from the South. If both teams advance to the sweet sixteen, this would provide a rematch of the season-opener on the USS Bataan, which was cancelled at halftime due to condensation while Florida held a 4-point lead.

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This morning, the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee named Georgetown University one of the hosts for the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. Georgetown will host the East Regional at their home arena, the Verizon Center.

This is the first time Georgetown hosts the regional finals since 2006, in addition to the Verizon Center’s first tournament games since 2010. The East Regional – better known as the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight – will be held on Thursday, March 28, and Saturday, March 30.

In a statement, Athletic Director Lee Reed said, “Along with Verizon Center, we’re very excited to serve as the host for the 2013 NCAA East Regional. It is part of our University’s commitment to be engaged with the community and we’re happy to bring this great event to our city for Georgetown fans and others who love March Madness.”

With the announcement, Washington DC joins Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Arlington, Texas as regional hosts. The weekend’s slate ultimately decides who advances to the Final Four, to be held in Atlanta next season. If the Hoyas manage to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, they will be switching time zones – as the host school for the East Regional, they cannot be placed in the region.

This year’s tournament holds great significance as the 75th iteration of a tradition that has grown from eight teams back in 1939 to 68 teams in its current format. All of the other locations were selected back in 2009, but the committee delayed a decision on the East Regional until today.

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John Thompson III had something to say after today’s NCAA Tournament loss:

I don’t know that I’ve ever been as proud to be associated with a group of men, with a team, as much as I am with this team this year. This team, in spite of whatever downs we’ve had, losses like today, has been a really special group that I think has represented themselves, represented our institution, represented their families, represented each other very well. It’s a group that’s given it their all. We haven’t always had success, but it’s a group that all year fought for each other and cared about each other, and I’m proud to be associated with these guys.

We’ve got the full recap up on the main site.

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this post’s title accidentally switched Georgetown and North Carolina State. Would that it were.

In case you missed it, here’s our recap of the Hoyas’ triumphant return to postseason success against Belmont yesterday. But as Jason Clark put it after the game, we’ve got a lot more games to play, starting with the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Scouting the Wolfpack

Shortly before Georgetown began its work against Belmont, North Carolina State finished up a blowout of its own against San Diego State, breaking open a close game in the second half to win 79-65. The No. 11 seed Wolfpack weren’t even a lock to make the NCAAs heading into the ACC Tournament, but they’ve overcome a four game February losing streak and are playing some of their best basketball of the season. Their 23-12 record doesn’t mean anything now–Georgetown just has to focus on the team dominated San Diego State and nearly knocked off UNC a week ago.

Unlike three-obsessed Belmont, NC State is just as comfortable inside the paint as out. They’re a very good rebounding team, and on offense they’re well balanced–against San Diego State, four players scored in double digits.

“It’s a difficult matchup,” head coach John Thompson III said. “They have a very distinct, very tough interior presence, but at the same time, they have very good perimeter play. So from our defensive perspective, whether we’re talking man, zone, or whatever the heck we’re going to do, we’re going to have to be very good at all parts.”

Of course, like any team, the Wolfpack have their weaknesses. Their defense isn’t particularly airtight, allowing a middling  67.9 points per game, and they don’t go very deep. Just eight players average more than 10 minutes a game, and only seven of them saw the court on Friday. If Georgetown can draw some fouls early, they could force some favorable matchups.

Matchup History

Georgetown and NC State have met six times before, most famously in the 1989 Sweet Sixteen, when John Thompson Jr.’s Hoyas prevailed over Jim Valvano’s Wolfpack thanks in part to a traveling violation by NC State’s Chris Corchiani, a call curmudgeonly announcer Billy Packer called the “worst call in NCAA Tournament history.” (NC State fans are still sore about it. It even came up today at Thompson’s press conference. After JTIII responded, a particularly sonorous voice emanated from behind a curtain defending the call.)

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Cheers erupt here at Georgetown with Michigan announced as No. 4 seed in midwest, bigger cheers that #Hoyas won’t play Ohio.

— Craig Stouffer (@CraigStouffer) March 11, 2012

It took until the final two pairings, but Georgetown eventually received its NCAA tournament seeding last night. The Hoyas, managing to hang on to a 3-seed despite bowing out to Cincinnati early in the Big East Tournament, will travel to Columbus to take on 14-seed Belmont on Friday.

“It was nerve-wracking the whole time, waiting on your name to be called,” senior guard Jason Clark said. “All you want is to find out where you’re playing, who you’re playing, when you’re playing.”

Now that the Hoyas know their opponent, they’ll waste no time preparing for the Atlantic Sun champions. In fact, as soon as the Selection Show special at Leo’s was over, head coach John Thompson III retreated to McDonough to begin reviewing film with his assistants. But while the team is squarely focused on their first-round matchup, the release of the bracket is occasion for fans to start dreaming. With that in mind, we’ve taken a look at Georgetown’s potential draw and determined what bodes well and what doesn’t.

First off are the Belmont Bears. We’ll have a more comprehensive breakdown of the Bears later in the week, but they’re about as dangerous as a 14-seed gets. They’re a sharpshooting team that is fourth in the nation in scoring offense, and they’re hot too—Belmont enters the tournament on a 14-game winning streak. The bright side of drawing Belmont? If you’re superstitious, the Bears just happen to be the first team Georgetown beat en route to the Final Four in 2007. Of course, that doesn’t mean much to the people who will be playing on Friday.

“We are a different team, they are a different team,” Thompson said. “I’m not going to look at tapes of their 2007 team and they’re not going to look at our 2007 team.”

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The Georgetown women’s basketball team opened up the first round of the NCAA tournament with a commanding 65-49 win over Princeton on Sunday afternoon. It is the second straight year the team has won its opening round game.  The fifth-seeded Hoyas came out strong and relied on star player Sugar Rodgers to down the 12th-seeded Tigers.

First half performance

Georgetown held Princeton to 14 points in the first half while Rodgers alone scored 16 points.  The Hoyas’ suffocating full court press shut down the Tigers’ offense, holding them to 28.6 percent shooting and forcing 14 turnovers in the half.  The Hoyas took advantage of the Tigers’ miscues and scored 22 points off turnovers.  Georgetown also shot a staggering 46.2 percent from downtown, half of which came from Rodgers. Princeton adjusted in the second half and outscored the Hoyas 35-31, but couldn’t make up the large first half margin.

“This time we went full court, our madness press because we wanted to start the pressure up a little bit higher and be just a little more aggressive,” head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said.

Sugar Rodgers

Sugar Rodgers demonstrated why she is the team leader, scoring 26 points. She also led the team with 10 rebounds, four assists, and three steals. It was her first double-double since Jan. 8 against Marquette, when she also had 26 points and 10 rebounds. Rodgers shot 8-for-18 from the field and 4-for-9 from beyond the arc.  Juniors Tia Magee and Rubylee Wright supported their sophomore teammate by adding 14 and 11 respectively.

What’s next

On Tuesday the Hoyas will take on the fourth-seeded Maryland Terrapins, who defeated St. Francis 70-48 in the first round on Sunday.  Georgetown beat Maryland earlier in the season 53-45 at home, but this time the game will be played at the Comcast Center in College Park. Game time is set for 7:15 p.m