The NABC approached Georgetown Coach Ed Cooley early in the summer about participating in the Globl Jam in Toronto. He didn’t know if it was a good idea.
The Hoyas hadn’t taken a foreign trip in his first two years with the program, and he wasn’t sure this was the time to commit to one. And with an influx of veteran transfers, there was plenty of work to do on campus without having to worry about outside competition.
“Little I did I know, it’s probably one of the best things we’ve done to date to bring our group together,” Cooley said this week. “What it did was it fast-tracked our development.”
Georgetown is 4-0 for the first time since 2017-18, and it hasn’t come exclusively against overmatched competition. The Hoyas scored the first 11 points and never trailed in a 70-60 victory at Maryland on Nov. 7, then navigated severe frontcourt foul trouble Saturday to defeat Clemson 79-74 at home.
KJ Lewis, a 6-foot-4 junior guard who transferred from Arizona, scored a career-high 26 points and matched a career best with five steals Saturday as Georgetown continued to put its head start to good use.
“Ed’s team looks like they’re more midseason form than a lot of teams because they have so much offense in, so many different defenses already,” Clemson Coach Brad Brownell said. “It’s a lot to get prepared for in a short amount of time.”
It’s the payoff of a plan that started to take shape only after the Hoyas knew what their roster would look like. Following an 18-16 campaign that doubled the Hoyas’ win total from Cooley’s debut season, Georgetown had two major losses in wing Micah Peavy and center Thomas Sorber, who were anchors at both ends of the court and eventual NBA Draft selections.
Cooley and his staff targeted players in the transfer portal this spring who came from programs with recent NCAA Tournament experience. Lewis is the most prominent example, but the rotation is dotted with 6-foot-7 sophomore Isaiah Abraham (Connecticut), 6-foot-5 junior DeShawn Harris-Smith (Maryland), 7-foot-1 senior Vince Iwuchukwu (St. John’s) and 6-foot-5 graduate student Langston Love (Baylor), all of whom have suited up for March Madness.
In addition to playing five games in seven days on the Canadian trip, Cooley purposefully lined up some preseason opportunities to take the Hoyas on the road. He called George Washington Coach Chris Caputo and proposed an exhibition game in Foggy Bottom, and reached out to Kentucky assistant Mark Fox (who was on Cooley’s staff two seasons ago) to gauge interest in a matchup at Rupp Arena. “In doing so, we put our players in a very, very awkward position of being the underdog in all of those situations,” Cooley said. “So the thought process behind that was ‘Let’s fail early, let’s learn, let’s grow, let’s develop.’”
While there were setbacks in Canada, Georgetown won both its exhibition games, and has impressed in stretches over the last two weeks. Lewis is filling a role similar to Peavy’s from a year ago. Point guard Malik Mack, a 6-foot-2 junior, improved both his game and his body after jumping from Harvard to Georgetown last season.
The Hoyas’ biggest setback came Tuesday, when the program announced Iwuchukwu will undergo “a scheduled medical procedure.” Iwuchukwu has a history of heart issues dating back to the summer before his freshman season at USC, when he went into cardiac arrest. He returned in mid-January and played 14 games as a freshman. Iwuchukwu transferred to St. John’s for his junior season before switching to Georgetown last spring. The school said Iwuchukwu is expected to be evaluated within six to eight weeks. He is averaging 11.8 points and 4.0 rebounds.
That will test Georgetown’s depth, which at least is improved over last season but is probably at its most vulnerable in the low post. Without Iwuchukwu, 7-foot sophomore Julius Halaifonua (3.5 points, 2.8 rebounds, 13.0 minutes per game) and 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman Seal Diouf (1.0 points, 1.0 rebounds, 5.5 minutes) are likely to have additional responsibilities, and it’s possible Cooley will opt to go small with 6-foot-7 sophomore Caleb Williams at the five.
These Hoyas are much deeper than last season and used 11 players against both Maryland and Clemson. While the rotation could be trimmed in time, there is already an enviable degree of cohesion in place. “I wouldn’t say we’re ahead of everybody,” Lewis said. “I think we’re really prepared, and we’re getting more comfortable playing with each other as the year goes on.”
It’s enough to make a postseason push feel plausible, something that’s become a rarity at Georgetown. The Hoyas’ last NCAA at-large berth came in 2015, with a 2021 conference tournament title leading to a one-round cameo and the program’s only NCAA trip in the last decade.
Cooley describes the Hoyas’ four-day Big East title run at an empty Madison Square Garden during the pandemic season as “lightning in a bottle,” not an unfair characterization for a team that hadn’t won more than two games in a row all season. By the time Cooley and his staff arrived from Providence two years later, Georgetown had gone 13-50 since its championship push. “When we took the job in 2023, there was a lot, a lot, a lot to unearth, moreso than many understand,” Cooley said. “So the fact that we’re where we’re at right now is damn near a miracle.”
But not an overnight one. Georgetown was 9-23 in Cooley’s first season, then underwent a massive overhaul for the 2024-25 campaign. That group was young, with only two upperclassmen on the roster. This one is not; every Hoya is in at least his second year in a college program. It’s led to elevated expectations internally, which were evident in Cooley’s reaction to a spate of fouls in the sluggish first half of last week’s 83-70 defeat of Binghamton. On consecutive defensive possessions, an exasperated Cooley subbed out a player who committed a befuddling infraction during what was then a one-score game. “That’s something that Coach talked about,” Mack said. “Our lethargic way of playing [Wednesday] just wasn’t what we wanted to do and it wasn’t Georgetown basketball. Coach let us know that at halftime. He let us know that after the game.”
In the Hoyas’ defense, they came out to an announced crowd of 3,391 in cavernous Capital One Arena, an understandable emotional letdown after playing in a charged, near-sellout environment at Maryland five days earlier.
Georgetown’s announced attendance against Clemson was 8,562, which filled up much of the lower bowl and included a considerable student turnout. It was the Hoyas’ fourth-largest nonconference crowd under Cooley, behind visits from Syracuse (2023) and Notre Dame (2024) and his debut against Le Moyne when all tickets were free.
Rebuilding any semblance of a homecourt advantage is a part of what Cooley has sought since his arrival. Saturday’s performance should help on that front. “They see a product on the floor against a high-quality opponent, NCAA team, we played well, we made some things happen and the building is energized, just a little bit of energy in our community,” Cooley said. “I believe that will help get our students, supporters, community people out to watch us a little bit more. If and when we’re fortunate to win another home game, can that continue to build, build, build?”
Build, build, build. That could be the mantra of the last eight months to set up Georgetown for its strong start. Or it might be an apt description of the last three years.
Either way, the Hoyas are positioned to play meaningful games not just later this month (against Dayton and either BYU or Miami next week in Orlando, Fla.) and in December (at North Carolina), but also throughout the conference schedule.
And with a team that’s ahead of schedule in its development — thanks in part to some calculated offseason decisions — a former national power could be on the way to a breakout season.
“I’ve been on the other bench playing against Georgetown,” Cooley said. “I don’t even know if you’re so much playing the team that’s there so much as you’re playing against the brand of Georgetown. That’s what people remember. You’re playing Georgetown. It has such a national cachet, you’re going to get everybody’s best shot, especially if they know you’ve turned the corner and you’ve made a lot of ground up to becoming the program that we all hope to be.”
Around the Rim
• Aside from UConn and Georgetown, it was a lean start to the season for the Big East against high-end foes. The overall record of 31-12 (.721) looks decent enough, but the league’s teams are a combined 3-9 against other Power Five competition.
It isn’t a cause for panic; no one expects St. John’s to deal with any long-term damage from losing to Alabama. But it does place an even greater onus on November tournament performances as teams try to establish postseason resumes well before Big East play.
• Villanova has the top scorer in the Big East in 6-foot-3 redshirt sophomore Bryce Lindsay, whose 18-point effort Saturday against Duquesne was a season low for a player averaging 23 points an outing. And it has Division I’s top rebounder, with 6-foot-10 senior Duke Brennan grabbing 14.8 a game.
The Wildcats also have a three-game winning streak since falling 71-66 to BYU to open the season.
What they don’t have is a defense that is remotely satisfactory for first-year Coach Kevin Willard.
“Can’t give up 77 points and 50 percent shooting at home,” Willard told reporters after Saturday’s game. “There’s nothing good on defense right now.”
• Offense (and pace, for that matter) don’t seem to be a problem for Providence (2-2). Between a 107-101 overtime loss to Virginia Tech and a 106-81 rout of Penn, the Friars already have scored 100 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 2008-09.
Providence couldn’t stretch the streak to three, dropping a 97-88 decision at Colorado on Friday.
• DePaul’s Chris Holtmann got his first Division-I job in 2010 at Gardner-Webb. Three stops later, his Blue Demons (2-2) will play host to the Runnin’ Bulldogs (0-4) on Tuesday.
“I just owe so much to that school and that former AD, Chuck Burch,” Holtmann told reporters Monday. “It was a game that worked out for us.”
• Xavier trailed by 30 late in the second half of last week’s 87-68 loss to Santa Clara. And while the Musketeers narrowed the margin in the final minutes, they still were dealt their most lopsided home loss since a 64-42 setback against Oral Roberts on Dec. 18, 2011.
Games to Watch
Arizona at UConn, Nov. 19 (7 p.m., Fox Sports 1)
The Huskies (4-0) passed their first major test Saturday as 6-foot-4 junior guard Silas Demary Jr., 6-foot-8 redshirt senior forward Alex Karaban and 6-foot-11 senior center Tarris Reed Jr. each scored 21 points in an 86-84 defeat of BYU. Arizona (4-0) already owns victories over Florida (in Las Vegas) and UCLA (at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles) and will play its only on-campus nonconference road game when it visits Storrs.
Creighton vs. Baylor, Nov. 24 (2 p.m., truTV)
The Bluejays (2-1), who were swatted away 90-63 in their first serious test last week at Gonzaga, still seem to be sorting out their offensive identity in the post-Ryan Kalkbrenner era. Forward Jasen Green, a 6-foot-8 junior, is averaging a team-high 11.5 points off the bench, but there’s plenty for Greg McDermott’s team to sort out. The trip to Vegas for the Players Era Festival next week will provide ample opportunity to do so. Creighton will also meet Iowa State and another undetermined opponent in the event.
St. John’s vs. Iowa State, Nov. 24 (4:30 p.m., truTV)
The Red Storm (2-1) gets the same two opponents as Creighton to open the Players Era Festival, only in reverse order. St. John’s tightened up on defense in the second half of Saturday’s 93-60 drubbing of William & Mary, its first outing since a frenetic 103-96 loss to Alabama a week earlier. With six players averaging in double figures — paced by 6-foot-9 senior forward Zuby Ejiofor’s 18.3 points per game — the Red Storm will attract plenty of attention in the desert even amid the event’s loaded field.
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