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The Georgetown Hoyas announced their out-of-conference schedule, and, as expected, media and fans took to their guns to shoot it down.
The annual complaint is that the Hoyas’ schedule is too soft as if the program were Duke, Michigan State, or North Carolina. Of course, this can be blamed on John Thompson II, who, even when Georgetown was at the top of the college basketball food chain, would choose to go and play a bunch of cupcakes in Hawaii.
Head coach Ed Cooley is in year two of rebuilding Georgetown’s program. Give him some grace. What would be the point in playing the 50th toughest schedule in America while he’s trying to rescue the university from the Patrick Ewing era?
How does it help Cooley in recruiting if you go to Hawaii and lose to North Carolina by 40 points? It doesn’t help the program to get the likes of Trey McKinney. All it does is remind people how far the program needs to go.
When a program is as talent-bankrupt as the Hoyas were when Ewing left, there are no easy fixes at a school like Georgetown in the era of the transfer portal. Not only does Cooley have to convince both high school and transfer players to consider Georgetown, but there are also NIL considerations. Like most programs, Georgetown has to pick and choose where to spend the money; sometimes they will be outbid.
The scheduling conversation will be revisited if the program is in the same state in year four, but for now, Cooley’s scheduling is where it should be. If anything, Cooley did what some have been asking Georgetown to do for years: cherrypick some games and play them on campus. Two games (Lehigh and Wagner) are scheduled to be played at McDonough Arena.
The schedule is open to teams from power conferences. Georgetown will host Notre Dame, and there are visits to Syracuse and West Virginia.
The schedule is where it should be. It reflects a program that has a long way to go to regain respectability.
