Craig Esherick — educated as a lawyer, better known as Georgetown’s basketball coach — still knows when to drop a case.

‘Don’t go there,’ Esherick, 20 years removed from passing his bar exam, warned recently. ‘You don’t want to get me in trouble again.’

The said trouble arose after a Hoyas game Jan. 12, when the fifth-year head coach lambasted officials for what could best be termed, in a semi-legal tongue, refereeing negligence. His client? Hoya forward Mike Sweetney, who leads the team in scoring and receives the brunt of the opposition’s defensive attention.

‘I will pay any referee to sit in the post and let somebody beat the crap out of him and see how he likes it, see how his back likes it, how his arms like it,’ Esherick said in the Jan. 12 postgame press conference. ‘Just because Mike is 6-8 and 260 pounds doesn’t mean he doesn’t hurt when he gets fouled.’

So now, several weeks later, Esherick has dropped his grievances. A case against officiating, he decided, isn’t winnable. But that doesn’t mean opponents have disregarded the constant, physical double- or triple-teams of Sweetney.

As a consensus among Big East coaches, it’s the best way to beat Georgetown. And it’s likely the approach that Syracuse will adopt tonight in its game against the Hoyas at the Carrier Dome.

Sweetney averages 22.2 points and, even more impressively, scores 25.0 per game in Big East games. That’s roughly 33 percent of the Georgetown offense.

‘I’m expecting teams to double- and triple-team Mike, there’s no question about it,’ Esherick said. ‘He’s a good player — it’s no secret — so that’s something we’re going to have to continue to deal with.’

Problem is, the Hoyas lack another consistent scoring option to relieve some pressure from Sweetney, a preseason selection to the All-Big East team.

Nobody else on the team scores more than 12 points per game. In fact, one NBA scout told The Washington Post that, after Sweetney, ‘the cupboard (of pro-caliber talent) is bare.’ Opponents, therefore, can turn all attention to the defense — legal or not — of Sweetney.

Such gameplans aren’t uncommon. In the NBA, gargantuan Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal often faces repeated fouling from inside defenders, a strategy coined ‘Hack-a-Shaq.’ With Sweetney, perhaps the tactic is ‘Strike-a-Mike.’

‘That’s the best way to beat them — double down on Mike and force everyone else to beat you,’ Connecticut assistant Clyde Vaughan said. ‘I mean, he’s such a great player that you can double him and he’ll still beat you on the glass, but they really need someone else to step up. That’s the only way teams will stop double- and triple-teaming Sweetney.’

Following his Jan. 12 tirade, Esherick escaped some pressure of his own. The league elected not to suspend Esherick, even though he also confronted Big East director of officiating Art Hyland following the game.

Hyland refused to comment specifically on Esherick’s remarks, but he added that the conference’s officials increased their efforts in the past few years to call fouls inside.

‘You see a lot more post fouls called now, both offensively and defensively,’ Hyland said, ‘because we don’t want wrestling matches going on down there.’

Regardless of the tactics used against Sweetney, the junior power forward has held up pretty well. Against West Virginia — the game which prompted Esherick’s eruption — Sweetney posted 35 points and 19 rebounds. He also led Georgetown in assists, steals and blocked shots.

Since then, he’s scored at least 20 in five of the team’s six games. Plenty of those points have come from the line, too. Against St. John’s on Jan. 18 and Rutgers on Jan. 20, Sweetney attempted 13 free throws in both games, leading to a combined 18 points.

‘You don’t want to foul him because he’s too good of a free-throw shooter,’ Seton Hall coach Louis Orr said. ‘He’s a very physical player and you can’t play him without making contact.’

And those are exactly Esherick’s complaints. At least, they were.

He wanted officials to pay attention, but for now, he’s simply happy drawing attention to his team’s finest player.

‘I think Mike is clearly as good as any power forward we’ve ever had here,’ Esherick said. ‘He can score, he can rebound and he’s developed into a pretty good defensive player, too. If you compare him with the guys we’ve had who’ve played in the NBA, Mike is clearly up there with all of them.’

Published on February 2, 2003 at 12:00 pm