Lubick Picks Georgetown
Nate Lubick committed to Georgetown on Tuesday evening. The junior forward selected the Hoyas over Michigan, Stanford, and Virginia as well as a long list of other high-major programs that he had already ruled out.
Georgetown head coach John Thompson, Michigan head coach John Beilein, and Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins were all in the St. Mark’s gym on Sunday afternoon (Thompson and Beilein even brought their whole staff) as they attempted to make a late push for Lubick’s services.
Just two days later, Lubick made his decision and is now set to be a Hoya in 2010.
``Coach (John) Thompson called it the Georgetown Matrix," Lubick told Fox Sports. "If you take basketball out of the equation, you've still got one of the best academic schools in the country. If you take out the academics, you've still got one of the top basketball programs. And if you take both out of the equation, you're still right in Washington, D.C. - the most powerful city in the country."
Lubick’s combination of size, skill, and athleticism should make him an ideal fit in Georgetown’s system – which is essentially a more aggressive version of the Princeton offense.
While it has always been clear that Lubick would be a good fit on the floor for Georgetown, some people have questioned whether Lubick would be a good fit with his teammates off the court.
The question of whether race would impact Lubick’s decision was first addressed by Goodman on his Fox Sports Blog http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/goodmanonfox.
It’s been more than four years since Georgetown has had an American-born Caucasion on their team.
That was before Matt Causey transferred out of the program and ultimately landed at Georgia Tech.
John Thompson III and the Hoyas landed highly regarded junior forward Nate Lubick last night. He isn’t set to arrive on campus until the fall of 2010.
``At first, after Georgetown offered, it was like, `Georgetown doesn’t offer white kids,’” Lubick said. “I thought about it a little bit and after I visited the second time and was with their players, I just said, ‘Who cares.’”
``I went on a bunch of visits and none of the teams were anywhere nearly as close as Georgetown,” Lubick added. “It’s crazy. They all hang out together like a family and couldn’t care less about the white-black thing and that’s what made me so comfortable. I didn’t even pay attention to it.”
Lubick will receive plenty of praise for committing to a place like Georgetown, a school that combines the best in academics and athletics. But ultimately, while his decision is certainly impressive, the way that he went about making his decision is even more impressive. He never let race become a factor and instead picked the program and school where he felt most comfortable.
Nate Lubick