There are a few versions of "Ironman" out there to consider.

You’ve got that old tune by Black Sabbath.

Then there is former Lakers forward A.C. Green, who over a 16-year career in the NBA set the league record for consecutive games played at 1,192. An even more impressive streak -- 38 years of celibacy -- likely ended shortly after his wedding last May. Said Green: "I'm mostly excited about finally understanding all the sex jokes in those American Pie movies. That Stifler guy really cracks me up." But we digress …

In Baltimore, of course, the only person people think of when they hear "Ironman" is former Orioles great and future baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr.

Not too far away in Washington, D.C., Georgetown had its own "Ironman," but he just left the building.

When slick-handle senior point guard Kevin Braswell ended his four-year career last March with a quarterfinal loss in the Big East Tournament, it closed a remarkable run. Braswell started every game -- all 117 of them -- in his career. Replacing him is the biggest question hovering over the Hoyas. If they had a proven point man, or even a backup ready to step in to the starting role, they easily would be in everyone’s Top 25. But they don’t, and Braswell chewed up a ton of minutes, so the backcourt returnees played few, if any, minutes at the point. That’s a concern.

Blue Ribbon Previews Oct. 28: ACC | A-Sun | NEC Oct. 29: A-10, A-East, Ivy League Oct. 30: Big East, Colonial, Metro Atlantic Ath. Conf., Patriot Oct. 31: Big 12, Big West, Big Sky, Missouri Valley Conf. Nov. 1: Big Ten, Horizon, MAC, Ohio Valley Conf. Nov. 4: C-USA, Mid. Cont., Sun Belt, SWAC Nov. 6: Pac-10, Mountain West, WAC, West Coast Conf. Nov. 8: SEC, Big South, Southern, Southland, Independents

What Georgetown does return is four other starters -- the Big East Player of the Year and probable Wooden Award candidate, power forward Mike Sweetney, along with senior center Wesley Wilson, junior swingman Gerald Riley and sophomore shooting guard Tony Bethel.

Braswell is the only significant loss and three other returnees -- senior forward Courtland Freeman, senior forward Victor Samnick and junior guard RaMell Ross -- are back from injuries that forced them out of last year’s lineup. Two and possibly three freshmen might see immediate minutes. You think the Hoyas might be as deep as the days when former coach John Thompson would sub in two and three players at a time to enter and execute some swarming, man-to-man defense?

"I think we’ll have a better team than last year," said coach Craig Esherick, who begins his fifth season since replacing the legendary big man in search of his second NCAA tournament berth. "We have four starters back and we have people, not just the starters, who are coming back and I think they’re confident, too. We had a good offseason in terms of no injuries and people recovering from them. The last couple of years, this is the best crop we’ve had in terms of everyone being healthy."

Braswell must have been immune to bugs.

Not only did he not miss a start, the records he set over four years put him among the elite guards in Georgetown’s storied history. He departed as the school’s career leader in assists (695) and steals (349) and was seventh on the all-time scoring list (1,735 points) A second-team All-Big East pick as a junior, he was a first-team pick last year, averaging 14.7 points, 5.9 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 2.8 steals. Braswell is now playing on the same team in Belgium as former Seton Hall guard Darius Lane.

"He was so resilient," Esherick said. "There was never any doubt that he was ready to play every single game and that type of dependability is not easy to replace."

There are few candidates for the floor general spot.

"I still haven’t settled on what I’m going to do at the point," Esherick said.

He has a few options. If he wants to go big, which is hardly a foreign concept at Big Man U. -- "They’ve got a few aircraft carriers," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said of the 6-8, 260-pound Sweetney and 6-11, 235-pound Wilson -- Esherick can go with the 6-5 Ross. The Fairfax, Va., native is an excellent passer who played in 12 games as a freshman. He missed last season with a foot injury and his senior season in high school with a shoulder injury. Ross could also play shooting guard or small forward.

"I’m kind of pulling for RaMell to have a good year because he’s had some difficulties through no fault of his own," Esherick said.

Candidate No. 2 is 6-2 sophomore Drew Hall (4.9 ppg, 2.0 apg, 1.3 tpg, .383 3PT). He averaged 20 minutes per game last year and was Braswell’s primary backup.

"At times I thought he was our best point guard," Esherick said. "But he had the luxury of having Kevin there."

The final candidate fell into the Hoyas’ lap.

Ashanti Cook, a 6-3 freshman who piloted Westchester (Calif.) High School’s team last year that was ranked No. 1 in the country by USA Today, had signed a letter-of-intent early with New Mexico. But after head coach Fran Fraschilla was fired, Cook was released from his letter and committed to the Hoyas in early July. He called Georgetown, Esherick said, but that’s probably because the Hoyas had already signed 6-8 sharpshooter Brandon Bowman, Cook’s Westchester teammate.

"I thought we got lucky, yes," Esherick said. "That type of thing doesn’t happen every day."

Cook and Bowman are the second set of high school teammates for Georgetown. Hall and Bethel played at Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md. Cook (13.0 ppg, 7.0 apg, 2.0 spg) and Bowman (13.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 7.0 apg) led Westchester to the California state championship and 32-2 record. Bowman chose the Hoyas over Maryland, Stanford, Virginia, Connecticut, Kansas and Tennessee.

Another newcomer is 6-6, 210-pound swingman Darrel Owens, who sat out last season because of NCAA Clearinghouse issues. The sophomore averaged 21.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists at Assumption High School in Napoleanville, La. He is versatile and athletic.

Of course, the No. 1 job for every Hoya will be to get the ball to the powerful Sweetney and get out of the way. In a league devoid of experienced, quality big men, the big fella could dominate this season even more than he did as a sophomore while averaging 19.8 points (fourth in the league) and 10.3 rebounds (second). The first-team all-conference pick was second in the Big East in field-goal percentage at .513 (.567 overall). He also shot nearly 79 percent from the free-throw line.

"I’m hoping he’ll improve from the standpoint of being able to do more things away from the basket on offense and defense," Esherick said. "But I don’t mean too far away."

Same goes for the improving Wilson, who averaged 5.5 points and 3.3 rebounds two years ago about bumped those to 12.2 points per game, 6.2 rebounds and added 2.26 blocks (third in the league). Wilson and Sweetney are the Big East’s best 1-2 punch in the post.

"He was a backup to Ruben [Boumtje Boumtje], then started last year and became a presence for us," Esherick said of Wilson. "He has a nice shooting touch, a turnaround jump shot and a jump-hook. But he’s got to pass better and work better with Mike. They both need to work better together."

The 6-9 Freeman (4.1 ppg, 3.9 rpg) missed most of his sophomore season with back and foot injuries and a series of ailments limited him last year. He appeared in all 30 games, started two but averaged 17 minutes. He left the Notre Dame game at home last year on three different occasions (ankle, back, concussion).

The 6-8 Samnick, a good defender, missed 13 games last year. Junior swingman Omari Faulkner (5.9 mpg, 0.7 ppg, 1.1 rpg), 6-6, and 5-9 senior guard Trenton Hillier (4.6 mpg, 0.4 ppg, 0.7 rpg) also could add depth. Amadou Kilkenny-Diaw, a 6-8, 215-pound freshman forward and non-scholarship player, rounds out the roster.

As for an inside-outside game, Georgetown might have that, too.

Riley (10.3 ppg, 4.0 rpg) has an improving jump-shot and Bethel (10.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.4 apg) had a breakout first season after missing the first six games with mononucleosis.

"Where he surprised me was defensively," Esherick said. "He really gave us something there."

After reaching the NCAA tournament in 2001 for the first time since 1997, the Hoyas missed out again last year. If they had upset then No. 21 Miami in a Big East quarterfinal, they probably would have locked up a bid. Instead, they blew a 10-point second-half lead and lost, 84-76.

"I don't know a whole lot of coaches that would want to play against this team. We're going to have three long days before Sunday, I can tell you that," Esherick said after that loss. "And I told the team after the game, I said, ‘We have now put our destiny in somebody else's hands. We got three days to wait.’ "

As it turned out, the waiting wasn’t the hardest part.

They were snubbed by the NCAAs.

"You need to remember this feeling. This is a helpless feeling," Esherick had said in the locker room after the Miami loss.

Georgetown was ready to accept an NIT invite -- the school’s 28th straight postseason appearance -- but after an early matchup at Richmond fell through and Esherick thought a trip to the West Coast was their fate ["TV changed it," he said], he declined the offer.

"I was not trying to make enemies," he said. "The type of schedule we would have had to play if we made it all the way to New York [and the semifinals] was not good for our team based on the fact that school ended so close to the end of our season. We would have missed an awful lot of classes and based on the youth we had I didn’t think it was a good idea."

OK, so what, last year we figured the Hoyas were back. We had them No. 21 in our Blue Ribbon forecast. If Georgetown can find a point guard to take care of the ball and put it in the hands of the right people, we might be wrong again.

Not only do the Hoyas have the potential to crack the Top 25 real early, but if they get any outside shooting -- and that’s usually a big if at Georgetown -- they could be very dangerous because their frontcourt is going to produce. No one in the Big East can stop it.

The Hoyas were the third-best rebounding team in the league last year by mere percentage points and for all the grind-it-out ghosts of Georgetown past, it’s important to note they led the league in points per game (79.2) last year.

Both Bethel and Riley, a shooter/slasher, are pretty good from downtown. They ranked 2-3 on the team in 3-point marksmanship at .382 and .376, respectively, behind Hall (.383). If all three raise those numbers just a bit, and Cook emerges as the only true point guard, the Hoyas have the toughness and maybe the leadership (Mike Sweetney, do you hear us?) to make a huge leap.