We’re #69! Gheorghetown Edition

As of the starting of this post, Georgetown men’s basketball is ranked #69 in the Ken Pomeroy College Basketball rankings.   Sitting at 12-6 overall and 3-4 in a middling Big East, Ed Cooley’s Hoyas are currently outside the NCAA tourney bubble, but at least are in spitting distance of making the dance.  (Note: they have since fallen after yesterday’s games even though they did not play. Take note, this feature may end up being a jinx.)

Recent History: Over the past few seasons, the Georgetown basketball program has been a lot more like Jonestown (too soon?) than the juggernaut that was Georgetown of the 80s & 90s.  In related news, Guyana is going to open the Jonestown site to tourists for anyone that has a morbid interest in 50 year old cult mass suicides.   

The once proud program has been rattling around at the bottom half of the Big East for most of the last decade.  Since the 2014-2015 season, the Hoyas are 135-179 (.430) overall and 54-129 (.295) in conference.  In the past three years they have won 4 Big East games (FOUR!) including the 2021-22 Patrick Ewing led team that went 0-19 in the conference. Ooof.  

Mascot/Nickname Profile:  Georgetown’s mascot is Jack the Bulldog with the current iteration being the 9th live English Bulldog playing the role of Jack.  According to the good folks over at BulldogWorld:

Because of the English Bulldogs build, it makes it difficult and dangerous for them to mate. Their stocky, front-end heavy bodies can mean that the males are unable to mount the females, and even if they are able to mount the female, they are at risk of injuring the female with their heavy bodies. This is why an English Bulldog should be artificially inseminated.

This fact reinforces the bulldog as the perfect mascot for Georgetown.  

As for the nickname, back in the day, fans of opposing teams at the Big East Tournament should chant, “What the hell’s a Hoya?”   I’m still not sure I know.  According to the Googles and the Wikis, it comes from a combination of the Greek “Hoia” and Latin “Saxa” to create the not nerdy at all popular sporting chant “Hoya Saxa!”   Beloved by fans of the classical languages, “Hoya Saxa!” translates loosely to “What Rocks!”.  Yeah, I don’t know either.  

Home Arena: Capital One Arena (Cap. 20,356) As Mr. Fabulous said in The Blues Brothers, “It’s a Fucking Barn”.  

Notable Basketball Alumni: Sleepy Floyd, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson and many others.  However, it has been 12 years since the Hoyas have had a player drafted and there is only one alumni currently playing in the NBA. (For those that like to play at home, I’ll put their identity at the end)

While basketball alumni that went on to play basketball get most of the headlines, it’s also fun to dive a bit deeper into the media guide and see what other notables suited up for a team.  Georgetown being Georgetown, they have a few.  These include Henry Hyde (Rob feel free to toss tomatoes or pee on the grave of this political opportunist), and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue who averaged 11.3 points per game as a 3 year letterman from 1960 -1962, including his senior year when he was elected team captain and student body president.  

Most notably for a certain subsection of the G:TB readership, attorney William Shea was a Hoya cager from 1929-1931.  Shea was instrumental in getting an expansion baseball team awarded to New York in 1962.  When the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club built their new stadium, they named it in honor of William Shea, later indirectly leading to the naming of my cat. 

Current Season Results: As noted above, the Hoyas fortunes are vastly improved this year over the past few years.  They have winning record overall and are 10-3 at home, but have begun to struggle as they face the teeth of their Big East conference schedule.   For the degenerates out there, they are 10-8 ATS.  

Reasons To Believe: Ed Cooley can coach.  The 2022 Naismith College Coach of the Year has turned the program around after the bleak Patrick Ewing years.  They have more talent on the roster now and have a coach who can get more out of them.  Even the best teams in the Big East this year have proven that they can be beaten so anyone in the top half of the conference will have a chance to run the table at the Big East Tournament and get in to the NCAAs.

Reasons To Fade Them:  They have zero “Quad 1” wins so far this season and the Big east is not strong enough so they won’t get too many in conference opportunities to improve the quality win category.  They have lost four in a row and just lost at home to DePaul who had lost 39 consecutive Big East games and had not won a road conference game since 2022.  At this point an at-large bid looks to be a loooong shot.

If I had to bet, I’d bet against G-Town making the NCAA tourney this year, but it does feel like Cooley has this team headed in the right direction.  Big John Thompson is not walking through that door, but there is no reason why G-Town can’t be a power again. 

Hoya still in the Association: Jeff Green.  At 38 years old, the Cheverly, MD product has been a consistent contributor, made over $100M in the NBA and has himself a ring (Denver).