Center Lee Scruggs was taken directly to medical attention inside University Hall in Charlottesville, Va., and guard Kevin Braswell was ushered from the visitors' locker room before Hoyas coach Craig Esherick finished his first postgame sentence to his team.

"All of a sudden, I notice Kevin lying out across five or six chairs," Esherick said. "And he's just in some serious pain."

Kevin Braswell scores less than last year, but is Georgetown's leader on offense.(AP)

Esherick was so concerned about his two players, and any other Hoya who might have needed attention, that Lorry Michel, the team's head trainer, complied with Esherick's request to ride the 100 miles home on the team bus.

Now, it's Georgetown's foes who are feeling that pain. Those close to the 10-0 and 21st-ranked team say that Virginia game marked a return to the once-glorious Hoyas tradition, a boost of adrenaline similar to what Scruggs and Braswell needed after defeating the Cavaliers.

Braswell said that is the past, that he and his teammates are focusing on an even brighter future. Then he corrected himself. He knows how much that victory meant to the program's boosters, the school's alumni and current students.

When power forward Mike Sweetney and his three fellow freshmen landed on campus, each one glowingly told current Hoyas how they were awed by the epic marathon victory over Virginia.

"They all said, 'We watched that game on TV.' That's what they were saying to us," Braswell said. "And all of my friends came to me to say they had watched that game. It was a good rush for them, a thrill for them. For me to perform like that in a game like that, it really built my confidence.

"Through the whole Big East tournament and the Virginia game, all of those games together, we gained a lot of confidence for this season. Now we know we can play against the big teams. It gave us all a confidence boost."

One game later, Georgetown's season ended at 19-15 when it lost to California in an extremely hostile environment at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, but it had continued a sterling streak of 26 consecutive seasons with a postseason berth.

"That's a pretty high standard," Esherick said.

At Georgetown, though, they aspire for more than an NIT bid. Over a stretch of 19 seasons, 18 of those berths were of the NCAA variety, including a championship in 1984, a second-place finish the following season and runs to the Elite Eight in '87, '89 and '96.

Last season's spot in the NIT was the Hoyas' third in a row. After last season, Esherick ordered spiffy new NCAA and NIT banners. And when he discovered that the program had been sent an extra NIT participation banner, he put it in a strategic place.

"Right above the urinals," Esherick said. "But that's where our bulletin board is. No offense to the NIT. We have NIT banners hanging up in our gym and we're very proud of making the NIT when we did. But it's right above the urinals, where they can't miss it.

"Our goal is still to make the NCAA Tournament. An awful lot of coaches who have had the 'down' years we have had, they went in and renegotiated their contracts. We always get a big kick out of that. A lot of people would love to have had the success we've had"

Georgetown is headed in that direction in typical bruising fashion. The Hoyas, long renowned for their physical play, are leading the nation with 45.3 rebounds a game. Black, blue and blood should be the team's colors.

In senior center Ruben Boumtje Boumtje, senior center Scruggs, sophomore center Wesley Wilson, sophomore forwards Courtland Freeman and Victor Samnick, and Sweetney, Esherick can arguably boast of the most imposing front line in the game.

Braswell, Anthony Perry, Nat Burton and Gerald Riley, all guards or swingmen, will stick their noses into the fray on the boards, too.

The difference from last season, though, is that the Hoyas run a smarter offense. They are ranked No. 25 in the nation and No. 3 in the improved Big East, averaging 84.1 points.

That's because of the improvement of Braswell -- a 6-foot-2 junior from Baltimore who is Esherick's best shooter -- at the point. The Hoyas were last in the Big East last season, shooting 39.4 percent from the field, but they are currently connecting on 47.2 percent of their attempts.

Braswell said a seven-point victory at Louisville earlier this month spoke volumes about his role at the point. He made only one of his 11 shots, but he doled out nine assists and offset three turnovers with four steals.

"It's more of a thing of being unselfish. Instead of trying to set yourself up for shots all the time, you have to set your teammates up where they can produce in better spots," Braswell said. "You have to know where this person can score and that person can score. If I have a 7-footer on the perimeter, he can't shoot 3s so why give him the ball out there?

"It took me awhile to understand things like that."

Three seasons ago, Braswell played off-guard on a 35-0 Maine Central Institute team led by former St. John's point man Erick Barkley. When he landed at Georgetown, Braswell found out quickly how much he had to learn about the position.

"My freshman year, I really struggled with it," he said. "I came in here scoring, thinking that would change a college game. But one player definitely won't change the game in college basketball. Last year, I understood more. Now, I understand what a point guard should do.

"I control the tempo of a game. I'm feeling more comfortable, the team is playing better and I'm playing better, so those are good things for us."

Esherick said Braswell's situation compares favorably with that of Virginia guard Donald Hand, a shoot-first guard who has honed his unselfish skills to put the team's needs before his.

And the sleight-of-hand, eighth-ranked Cavaliers (9-0) are rolling.

A former point guard at St. Anthony's High in Washington D.C., and for John Thompson at Georgetown, Esherick knows the tricks of the trade at the point and how many strides Braswell has made at the position.

"To tell your best shooter that, 'If you're open, you shouldn't necessarily shoot,' is counter to what every shooting guard feels in his bones," Esherick said. "If a coach told me, 'You shouldn't take that shot,' and I knew I was open and I had a really good idea that the ball would go in ... that's not easy.

"A point guard is supposed to make certain that everyone who should touch the ball has had a chance to touch the ball, and to put people in position where they belong. Sometimes, that means passing up a shot."

At 10.5 points, Braswell is scoring four less points a game than he did last season. He's only shooting at a 36.8-percent clip, but that's better than his accuracy rate as a sophomore.

He's tied for 24th in the country at six assists a game, and his unselfishness has been contagious. Georgetown averaged only 13.2 as a team last season, among the worst in the Big East. Its current 17.3 average places it among the league's best-distributing teams.

"Kevin has learned to play the position," Esherick said, "and he's dangerous."