One Door Closes, Another Opens
To no surprise, Thomas Sorber remains in the NBA Draft pool, formally ending his college eligibility as of midnight. What's next for Georgetown?The Hoyas currently have 12 on scholarship, losing seven (Sorber, Micah Peavy, and five transfers) from the 2024-25 season and adding six via the transfer portal. Were Georgetown seek to add a backup center to Julius Halaifonua and Vincent Iwuchukwu, they could select among unsigned freshmen, junior college transfers, remaining players in the transfer portal, or overseas talent."Thomas Sorber had largely closed the door on a return to Georgetown by the time the NBA draft combine came around, but his departure is still a big blow for Georgetown's hopes of ascending the Big East hierarchy in Ed Cooley's third year," writes Sports Illustrated. "It wouldn't be surprising to see them attempt a late splash either in the portal or international markets, but options are dwindling." Sorber becomes the 10th early entry candidate for Georgetown in the NBA Draft era. Of these, five were drafted, with Sorber a certainty to be the sixth.
1 Never played in NBA. 2 Played in NBA as a free agent. Syracuse Series Not Rescheduled
With the announcement of the series with North Carolina, College Sports Today's Jon Rothstein reports that the Georgetown-Syracuse series will not be renewed in 2025-26.The matchup has declined in interest since Syracuse departed for the ACC, with neither team nationally ranked in the past nine years of the series. The downturn was especially notable in Syracuse, where each of the last four games with Georgetown posted attendance drawing smaller crowds than the year before. Last December's game drew just 17,187, the smallest crowd at the Carrier Dome for a Georgetown game in 43 years."The fact is the series has been on borrowed time since Syracuse made the jump to the ACC in 2013," writes Syracuse Post-Standard columnist Brent Axe. "Everything in life reaches an expiration date, and it may be time to face the hard truth that this rivalry has fizzled out of relevance." The end of the series earned not a single mention in the Washington Post, as it continues its move away from Georgetown coverage. Were it to have been renewed, the game would have been played in Washington, where Georgetown still has no home games confirmed and announced for 2025-26. Syracuse accounted for three of the four largest crowds at Capital One Arena since 2017, where attendance has fallen by 30 percent in the last seven years. Schedule Update: North Carolina
A December road game at North Carolina is being reported by basketball columnist Jon Rothstein."Georgetown and North Carolina will begin a home-and-home series this season in Chapel Hill, multiple sources told College Hoops Today," he wrote. "There is no timetable on an announcement. An official date is also TBD, but the game is expected to take place during December of 2025."North Carolina returns one starter and one reserve from a 23-14 team in 2024-25 team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. Five inbound transfers and three freshmen are part of a still-developing roster in Hubert Davis' fifth season. "Judging by various projected rankings, it remains in need of at least one more impact talent to avoid becoming the program's first team since 2005-06 and just the fourth UNC cast in the past 52 years to begin a season outside the AP Top 25 Poll," writes Sports Illustrated. The two schools have met nine times, most recently in the 2007 NCAA regional final, with the Hoyas owning a 5-4 lead in the series. Georgetown has played just once in Chapel Hill, a 79-74 win in the 2003 NIT. This was not confirmed by the basketball office, which instead posted a release Wednesday morning announcing Georgetown's participation in the Nov. 27-28 ESPN Events Invitational, a tournament which was originally reported by CBS Sports.com on February 28. Georgetown To Play Pre-Season Exhibition
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Georgetown will travel to Kentucky for an October 30 scrimmage at Rupp Arena.
ADDITIONAL COVERAGE
The only Big East team which heretofore did not participate in exhibition games, Georgetown has not competed in such a format since the NCAA relaxed rules on pre-season competition. Its last exhibition game of any kind (excepting foreign travel) was a November 1, 2003 game at McDonough Gymnasium with a traveling national team from Israel.
In lieu of exhibition games, which are open to the public and will draw a representative crowd to 23,000 seat Rupp Arena, Georgetown had previously participated in a pair of inter-squad scrimmages each October, closed to the public. First year coach Mark Pope led Kentucky to a 24-12 record last season and a #12 ranking in the Associated Press poll, advancing to the NCAA regional semifinals until losing to Tennessee. The Wildcats picked up six in the transfer portal, including an add Tuesday in West Virginia transfer Brayden Hawthorne. "Big Blue Nation is brimming with anticipation after a monster portal haul that should give Mark Pope the deepest bench in America," wrote Sports Illustrated in late April. "Sources tell [Saturday Down South that] Kentucky spent around $17.5 million dollars to land this class, a staggering figure even by current NIL standards. But this wasn't a thoughtless spending spree. Mark Pope had a plan, and this roster makes sense as a collective unit." The two teams have not met since the 1984 national semifinal in Seattle, while GU's last game in Rupp Arena was the 1985 NCAA final. In its first news release since April 3, the basketball office posted an announcement on the time and date. 2024-25 ScoreboardAt the conclusion of the spring semester, here's a rundown of finishes for Georgetown athletic programs in 2024-25 that maintain a win-loss schedule (track, golf, rowing, etc. do not do so.)
Georgetown Adds Rutgers Transfer
Seeking to address depth in the backcourt, Georgetown has added 6-4 guard Jeremiah Williams, late of Rutgers.The announcement was made on Williams' social media account, with the headline "Last Ride".One of the last of the COVID-19 era guards still in college basketball, Williams makes Georgetown his fifth and final stop in a college career that dates to the fall of 2020, where the Chicago native signed with Temple, averaging 9.4 ppg in 37 starts over two seasons. His career took some unfortunate turns thereafter. Transferring to Iowa State, Williams missed the 2022-23 season with an Achilles tear. He transferred to Illinois in May 2023 but transferred a month later to Rutgers. His arrival at Rutgers was halted by an arrest in September 2023 for gambling on college basketball games while enrolled at Iowa State. A total of 17 players across multiple ISU teams and five football staff members were charged, with Williams pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of underage gambling, which carried a $645 fine and a 15 game NCAA suspension for the 2023-24 season. A temporary restraining order filed by Williams was granted and allowed him to join the Scarlet Knights in February 2024, playing 12 games that season. "Williams impressed in his first season as a Scarlet Knight, averaging 12.2 points on 44.4% shooting...during the final 12 games of the campaign," wrote NJ.com. "He was unable to replicate that production this winter, showing significant regression while playing alongside five-star freshmen Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.". Williams averaged 7.0 points and 2.9 points for the season, announcing a transfer at the end of March. He was sought by Nebraska, Xavier, VCU, and George Washington, according to reports. The addition provides further depth to a crowded lineup in the Georgetown backcourt, with two rising sophomores (Malik Mack, Kayvaun Mulready), three other portal arrivals (K.J. Lewis, Langston Love, DeShawn Harris-Smith), and up to four walk-ons (Austin Montgomery, Hashem Asadallah, Michael Van Raaphorst, Mason Moses) all seeking time next season. Williams is not an outside shooter (averaging 26 percent over his prior four seasons) but can provide support where Mack is the only returning ball handler from 2024-25. The basketball office has not commented on the addition.
Fox Sports To Join Streaming App
The Fox Sports networks will be a part of a new streaming service this fall.The new service, "Fox One", will bundle the various Fox cable networks on a streaming app. In a press conference Monday, officials noted that the package will be available free of charge to existing cable customers but that a app-only subscription will be a premium price, so as not to accelerate the loss of cable subscribers which supports Fox News and its other properties.Big East games will be seen on a variety of platforms beginning next fall, including Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Warner Bros Discovery's TNT and TBS cable networks, and NBC's Peacock, a streaming-only service. The Waiting Game
Georgetown's 2025-26 rebuild is highly dependent on Thomas Sorber's NBA draft decision, likely within the next two weeks. Where does he place on various mock drafts?Here's a sample from latest draft predictions:
Men's Basketball Avoids APR Penalty
Georgetown men's basketball narrowly avoided NCAA penalties for multi-year graduation rates, according to NCAA data released Tuesday.ADDITIONAL COVERAGE A team's APR is the total points of a team's roster at a given time divided by the total points. A perfect score is 1000, met by 13 Georgetown teams this past year, but men's basketball scored a four year average of 931, one point above the NCAA cut-off. Four years of Georgetown single-year results among all sports are below. Note that men's rowing, squash, and sailing are not included in that they are not recognized NCAA sports.
For the 2023-24 season, Ed Cooley's first as head coach, Georgetown's single season mark of 911 ranked 347th of 362 NCAA schools among 11 scholarship players last season, five of whom graduated (Bacote, Bristol, Heath, Massoud, Mutombo), three that stayed (Epps, Fielder, McKenna), and three that transferred (Brumbaugh, Cook, Styles). The men's basketball totals on a per year basis are as follows:
The lowest score of any team playing in a major basketball conference? This appears to be DePaul, who posted back to back seasons under 930 following a crushing APR scored last season under former coach Tony Stubblefield. As a result, it is listed as subject for post-season ineligibility, pending appeal. The Big East multi-year results among men's basketball are below:
Sign Of The Times
Final exams conclude this week on the Hilltop, but the days of an undergraduate class of basketball players preparing for graduation have gone the way of the Hoop Club Banquet and the Kenner League.Aside from Ryan Mutombo (C'24), who graduated a year early, none of the players that entered as freshmen in 2021 remained at Georgetown to graduate in 2025:
Report: New Assistant Coach Arriving
A report from journalist Jeff Goodman indicates that veteran Virginia assistant Jason Williford is joining the Georgetown staff.Williford, 51, played at Virginia from 1991 through 1995 before assistant coaching stops at Boston University (2000-05) and American (2005-09). He served 16 seasons in Charlottesville as an assistant coach under Tony Bennett from 2009 through 2025, and was not retained with the arrival of new head coach Ryan Odom. Williford helped recruit the Washington DC area for Bennett and interim coach Ron Sanchez (2024-25) during his tenure there.Williford succeeds former coach Kenny Johnson, who left April 11 for a position last month at Indiana. The basketball office has not commented on the matter. |