2021–22 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team

2021–22 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball
Conference	Big East
2021–22 record	6–5 (0–0 Big East)
Head coach	Patrick Ewing (5th season)
Assistant coaches	Louis Orr Robert Kirby Akbar Waheed
Captain	Donald Carey[1] (1st year)
Home arena	Capital One Arena
Seasons ← 2020–21  →

The 2021–22 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represents Georgetown University in the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Hoyas, led by fifth-year head coach Patrick Ewing, are members of the Big East Conference. The Hoyas play their home games at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

Previous season[]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hoyas played a reduced non-conference schedule and had four conference games canceled during the 2020–2021 season. They posted a final record of 13–13, 7–9 in Big East play, and finished in eighth place in the conference. In the Big East Tournament, they defeated Marquette, Villanova, and Seton Hall to advance to the tournament championship game. In the championship, they defeated Creighton for the school's first tournament championship since 2007. As a result, the Hoyas received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015. As the No. 12 seed in the East region, they lost in the First Round to Colorado.

Offseason[]

Departures[]

NOTE: Chudier Bile, Jahvon Blair, and Jamorko Pickett all declared for the 2021 NBA draft after a four-year college career, opting not take advantage of the special fifth year of eligibility the NCAA granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Incoming transfers[]

2021 recruiting class[]

US college sports recruiting information for high school athletes

Name	Hometown	High school / college	Height	Weight	Commit date
Tyler Beard CG	Chatham, VA	Hargrave Military Academy	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)	175 lb (79 kg)	Jan 28, 2020
	Recruiting star ratings: Scout:   Rivals:   247Sports:    ESPN grade: 79
Jalin Billingsley PF	Cleveland, OH	Lutheran East	6 ft 7 in (2.01 m)	195 lb (88 kg)	Aug 1, 2020
	Recruiting star ratings: Scout:   Rivals:   247Sports:    ESPN grade: 79
Aminu Mohammed SG	Springfield, MO	Greenwood Laboratory School	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)	190 lb (86 kg)	Dec 21, 2020
	Recruiting star ratings: Scout:   Rivals:   247Sports:    ESPN grade: 90
Ryan Mutombo C	Atlanta, GA	Lovett School	6 ft 11 in (2.11 m)	235 lb (107 kg)	Oct 4, 2020
	Recruiting star ratings: Scout:   Rivals:   247Sports:    ESPN grade: 81
Jordan Riley SG	Brentwood, NY	Brentwood	6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)	195 lb (88 kg)	Jul 24, 2020
	Recruiting star ratings: Scout:   Rivals:   247Sports:    ESPN grade: 82
Overall recruiting rankings:
Note: In many cases, Scout, Rivals, 247Sports, and ESPN may conflict in their listings of height and weight. In these cases, the average was taken. ESPN grades are on a 100-point scale. Sources: "2021 Team Ranking". Rivals.com. Retrieved 2021-03-30.

Roster[]

Note: Chuma Azinge is a "recruited walk-on."

Season recap[]

Since Georgetown's run to the 2021 Big East Tournament championship and appearance in the 2021 NCAA Tourament, the team had lost seven players. Graduate transfer point guard Jalen Harris, who played only five games with the Hoyas in 2020–2021 before taking a leave of absence for "family reasons," never returned to Georgetown.^[2] Senior guard Jahvon Blair, the team's leading scorer, and four-year starting guard/forward Jamorko Pickett had both graduated and graduate student Chudier Bile, a forward who after a slow start had played a large role in Georgetown's late-season resurgence in 2020–2021, also had departed, all three foregoing their covid-19 pandemic-related fifth year of collegiate eligibility to enter the 2020 NBA draft.^[3][4][5] On April 14, 2021, moreover, the NCAA had approved a new transfer rule allowing Division I players to transfer once during their college careers and begin play immediately for their new schools, repealing a rule instituted in the 1960s requiring a transferring player to sit out two semesters before resuming play, and this removed a major disincentive to transferring.^[6][7] Sophomore starting center Qudus Wahab, who Ewing had said could be Georgetown's next dominating "big man," had surprised sports pundits and fans by transferring to Maryland.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} Two freshman who had seen only limited action — forward Jamari Sibley, who had been Georgetown's only four-star recruit for 2020–2021, and guard T.J. Berger — had transferred in search of greater playing time, Sibley leaving for UTEP and Berger departing for San Diego.^{[13][14][15][16]} However, Georgetown's loss of three players to transfer was merely the average among Division I schools during the 2021 offseason, which had seen 1,068 men's basketball players change schools at the dawn of the new transfer era.^[17] Three-year recruited walk-on Jaden Robinson, who had not appeared in a game during the 2020–2021 season, also left the program, opting not to return for a fourth year with the team.^[18]

Only six scholarship players returned from the 2020–2021 team. They included senior guard Donald Carey, Georgetown's top three-point shooter in 2020–2021; sophomore starting point guard Dante Harris, the 2021 Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player; junior centers Timothy Ighoefe — the presumptive starter after Wahab's departure — and Malcolm Wilson; and sophomore forwards Kobe Clark and Collin Holloway. Two walk-ons, junior guard Chuma Azinge and sophomore forward Victor Muresan, the son of National Basketball Association great Gheorghe Muresan, also returned. Two transfers arrived at Georgetown, senior Tre King from Eastern Kentucky and graduate student Kaiden Rice from The Citadel; the program hoped that King, a projected starter, could fill a gap at power forward as well as pose a three-point shooting threat,^[19] while Rice also was a skilled three-point shooter with the potential to make the starting lineup.^[20] Also joining the team were five freshmen who made up what 247Sports.com ranked as the 16th-best recruiting class in the United States and third in the Big East.^[21][22][23] It included guard Aminu Mohammed (the first five-star recruit of Ewing's tenure as head coach),^[24] four-star center Ryan Mutombo (the son of Georgetown and NBA great Dikembe Mutombo), combo guard Tyler Beard (who a year earlier had opted to delay his enrollment at Georgetown to spend an additional year at Hargrave Military Academy),^[25] power forward Jalin Billingsley, and shooting guard Jordan Riley. Mohammed was voted the preseason Big East Freshman of the Year for 2021–2022, the first Georgetown player so honored in Ewing's tenure as head coach.^[22][26]

Confusion over Georgetown's 2021–2022 schedule arose early in the offseason. On April 15, 2021, media reports indicated that Georgetown would play in the Orlando Invitational at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Kissimmee, Florida, on November 25, 26, and 28.^[27] On April 23, however, media reports indicated that the Hoyas would replace TCU in the 2021 Wooden Legacy in Anaheim, California, on 25–26 November.^[28][29][30] The situation finally was clarified on May 20, when Georgetown confirmed it would play in the Wooden Legacy, explaining that reports of its participation in the Orlando Invitational had been unofficial and that the school had never confirmed its participation.^[31]

When the matchups for the Gavitt Tipoff Games against Big Ten Conference opponents were announced on June 24, Georgetown was among the three Big East teams not selected to participate. It marked the first time since 2017 that the Hoyas did not play in the annual competition between the two conferences.^[32]

To increase attendance in the lower bowl of Capital One Arena — an oversized venue for most college basketball games — and overcome the television optics of many empty seats down close to the court, Georgetown introduced a new ticket strategy for 2021–2022. It made tickets for each of six lower-profile non-conference home games (against , , Siena, Longwood, UMBC, and Howard) free for season-ticket holders, but required them to actively opt in to attending each of the games; if they did not opt in to a given game, Georgetown reallocated their tickets to others who wanted to attend. Georgetown also allowed season-ticket holders who did opt in to those games to request an additional four free tickets. In addition, the school redistributed seats to help fill the lower bowl for the games, allowing some season-ticket holders and their guests to sit closer to the court than they otherwise would have.^[33] Georgetown also made all tickets to the opening game against Dartmouth free to anyone who requested one, both to boost early-season attendance and celebrate the return of fans to home games after their absence during the 2020–2021 season due to the covid-19 pandemic.^[34]

Georgetown released its 2020–2021 roster later than usual, leading to speculation that roster turmoil might already have struck the team. When the roster was released on October 15, Tre King was missing from it.^[35] The school released a statement that day explaining that King "did not meet the conduct expectations of the University. He is not enrolled in classes and will not be on the Men’s Basketball team."^[22] King was dismissed from the university on October 16.^[36] He re-entered the transfer portal on October 22,^[35] and his transfer to Iowa State was announced on December 1.^[37]

In their annual preseason poll in October, the Big East's coaches picked the Hoyas to finish in 10th place in the 11-team conference,^[22] a slight improvement over their 11th-place selection a year earlier.^[22][38][39] The loss of Tre King was a blow, and the 2021–2022 squad was a young team, rebuilding from its offseason roster turnover and facing possible frontcourt weaknesses. Sports pundits did not have high hopes for Georgetown to return to the NCAA Tournament in 2022 and expected the Hoyas to finish in the bottom half of the Big East.^[40][41] However, if the Hoyas made a successful non-conference showing and demonstrated an ability to stand up to powerhouse teams in the Big East, a National Invitation Tournament bid in seemed a reasonable possibility as the 2021–2022 season began.^[42]

During the 2020-2021 season, the Big East Conference had postponed and attempted to reschedule any conference game that a team could not play due to covid-19 pandemic issues. In the fall of 2021, the Big East Conference announced a new policy for the 2021–2022 season requiring any team which could not play a conference game on its originally scheduled date due to an insufficient number of available players including as a result of covid-19 exposure or infections, to forfeit the game, with a loss assigned to that team and a win assigned to its scheduled opponent, the win and loss also applying to the conference standings.^[43] The policy was intended to incentivize all Big East teams to be fully vaccinated against covid-19 so as to avoid forfeiting games.^[44]

Non-conference season[]

With all tickets free to anyone who requested one, the Hoyas drew 8,641 fans — including former Georgetown and NBA great Dikembe Mutombo, who saw his son make Ryan make his collegiate debut — to their opener against on November 13, the first game of a three-game homestand at Capital One Arena. Kobe Clark, Collin Holloway, and Timothy Ighoefe all sat out the game with injuries — Ighoefe due to a possible concussion he had suffered in practice — and center Malcolm Wilson made the first start of his college career and only his 13th appearance in a college game.^[23] Dartmouth guard Brendan Barry had a connection to Georgetown — his grandfather Jim Barry had been a standout forward on the Hoya teams of 1962–1963, 1964–1965, and 1965–1966 — but it was only the third meeting of the teams, the first since December 1974, and the first in Washington.^[45] Dartmouth had not had a winning season since 1998–1999 or an NCAA Tournament bid since 1959, had not fielded a team during the 2020–2021 season due to the covid-19 pandemic, was expected to finish near the bottom of the Ivy League in 2021–2022, and had lost its season opener by 16 points to a Boston College team expected to finish near the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Georgetown was a 16+1⁄2-point favorite.^[23][45] However, Dartmouth found great success in penetrating the Hoya defense and then passing the ball out for open three-point shots, and made 16 of 38 three-pointers (42 percent) during the game.^[23] The Big Green went on an 18–2 run in the first half to take a 28–10 lead, and although the Hoyas scored seven straight points late in the first half, the Big Green led 37–21 at halftime.^[23] The Hoyas started the second half with a 14–0 run to close to 37–35,^[23][46] but Dartmouth then went on an 11-5 run of its own to pull out to a 48–40 lead.^[46] The Hoyas mounted another comeback, scoring the next 10 points, and took their only lead of the game at 50–48 with 10:56 left to play,^[23][46] but they held it for only 16 seconds as Dartmouth responded with a decisive 18–3 run and won 69–60 in a shocking upset.^[23] Georgetown's all-time record against Dartmouth fell to 1–2.^[45] Aminu Mohammed led the Hoyas with 17 points and Donald Carey scored 14.^[47]

Three days later, Georgetown had a much better game against — a team which had played only 10 games in 2020–2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic — and broke open a four-point game in the second half with a 24–2 run on the way to a 79–57 victory, the Hoyas' 11th straight win over the Eagles.^[48] Aminu Mohammed had a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds, Dante Harris scored 13, Donald Carey added 12, and Timothy Ighoefe returned to action, scoring six points and grabbing 11 rebounds.^[48][49] The Hoyas improved their record to 2–1 on November 19 with an 18-point victory over winless Siena — a team which entering the game ranked 339th in Division I in scoring offense and tied for 320th in scoring defense — in which Kaiden Rice snapped out of his season-opening slump, shooting 7-for-10 from three-point range and scoring 23 points, while Carey added 20, Harris scored 14, and Mohammed finished with 11.^[50]

Georgetown had planned to play in the 2020 Wooden Legacy tournament the previous season, but it was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic.^[51][52][53] Instead, the Hoyas played in the 2021 edition of the Wooden Legacy, going on the road for the first time in the 2021–2022 season to play in the tournament at Anaheim Arena in Anaheim, California. An eight-team tournament from 2013 through 2019, the Wooden Legacy debuted a new four-team format in 2021, and Georgetown faced San Diego State in the semifinals on Thanksgiving night. The Hoyas had met the Aztecs only once before, in December 1981. Entering the game, the Aztecs were ranked only 342nd in Division I in three-point shooting at 24.6 percent while Georgetown was ranked 21st, making 41.5 percent of its three-pointers.^[54] During the game, however, San Diego State shot 7-of-16 from beyond the arc (43.8 percent) while Georgetown made only four out of 20 (20 percent) three-point shots.^[54] The Aztecs dunked five times on the Hoyas and built a 54–39 lead before the Hoyas closed to four points behind at 57–53 with 9+1⁄2 minutes left to play, but from there San Diego State outscored Georgetown 16–3 and won 73–56.^[54] Missing their last 10 shots, the Hoyas shot only 35.1 percent for the game and had only six assists.^[54] Aminu Mohammed and Dante Harris between them scored Georgetown's first 19 points and were the only Hoyas to finish in double figures, Mohammed with 20 points and Harris with 19.^[55] Donald Carey, Georgetown's leading scorer entering the game at 15.3 points per game,^[54] managed only four points, all on free throws,^[55] while Kaiden Rice shot 2-for-7 (28.5 percent) from three-point range and finished with eight points.^[54][55] It was the Aztecs' sixth straight win against the Big East, the longest active streak in the United States,^[54] and it evened the all-time record between the schools at 1–1.^[54]

The next day, San Diego State met USC in the tournament championship, while Georgetown was a 7+1⁄2-point favorite against Saint Joseph's, a 2–3 team, in the third-place game. Although the Hoyas and Hawks had played annually from the 1961–1962 through 1979–1980 seasons, it was the first meeting of the teams since then. Saint Joseph's led 15–14 with 11 minutes left in the first half, but after the Hoyas scored to take a 16–15 lead, the Hawks went on a 12-0 run and pulled ahead 27–16.^[56] Although Georgetown switched to an aggressive and effective full-court press and cut the lead to eight, the Hoyas shot only 30 percent from the field in the first half and at halftime Saint Joseph's led 36–26.^[56] After halftime, a 7–0 Hoya run helped Georgetown close the gap, and the Hoyas eventually took a 54–53 lead.^[56] Saint Joseph's responded with a 7–0 run of its own, and Georgetown again came back to close to 66–64. In the final seconds, Donald Carey lost the ball on a bad pass attempt with the Hawks leading 74–72, and Collin Holloway's last-second three-point attempt was blocked from behind, giving Saint Joseph's a 77–74 win.^[56] Saint Joseph's senior forward Taylor Funk had an outstanding performance, scoring a game-high 29 points on 9-for-11 (82 percent) shooting, including 8-for-10 from three-point range, and grabbing seven rebounds.^[57] Kaiden Rice led the Hoyas with 25 points, while Dante Harris scored 17, Donald Carey finished with 12, and Timothy Ighoefe grabbed 14 rebounds and added four points.^[58] The Hawks' victory tied the all-time series between the schools at 17–17^[56] and dropped the Hoyas to 2–3 on the season. They returned to Washington ranked 230th in Division I in perimeter defense, allowing opponents to shoot 34.3 percent from three-point range.^[59]

Georgetown next met Longwood before a sparse crowd at Capital One Arena.^[59] Longwood had never beaten a major-conference team^[59] but scored the first nine points of the game on three three-pointers and shot 40 percent from beyond the arc during the first half.^[59] The Hoyas did not take their first lead until pulling ahead 28–27 with 3:56 left in the first half, then pulled away with a 12–4 run to end the half. Although Georgetown led for the rest of the game, the Lancers, who shot 37.5 percent from three-point range for the game, twice cut the deficit to one point. Georgetown still led by only three points with under three minutes to play,^[59] but then pulled ahead 81–75,^[59] and Longwood never got closer than four points the rest of the way.^[59] The Hoyas evened their record at 3–3 with a 91–83 victory.^[59] Sophomore Collin Holloway, who scored a total of 15 points during his freshman year, came off the bench to lead the Hoyas with a career-high 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field, while Aminu Mohammed had a double double (15 points and 11 rebounds), Kaiden Rice finished with 15 points on five three-pointers, Dante Harris added 14 points, seven rebounds, and five assists, and Donald Carey scored 12 points.^[59][60] Timothy Ighoefe left the game in the first half with what turned out to be a broken hand; he did not return to the game^[59] and had surgery on December 2, and on December 3 Ewing announced that he would be out of action for four to six weeks.^[61]

Georgetown went back on the road to meet South Carolina on December 5 in the first year of a two-year home-and-home series against the Gamecocks.^[62] Tracy McGrady, who had played and coached with Ewing in the NBA, South Carolina and NBA great Alex English, and Dikembe Mutombo all attended the game.^[63] Both teams shot poorly from the field at first — the Hoyas missed their first nine shots and 20 of their first 23, while South Carolina went 6-for-22 to start the game — but the Gamecocks mounted a balanced offense and the Hoyas trailed for the entire game, shooting only 9-for-41 (22 percent) from the field in the first half, and falling behind 21–9.^[64][65] Georgetown used a 14–4 run to close to 25–23, but South Carolina finished the half with an 11–4 spurt of its own, and Georgetown went into the locker room at halftime behind 36–27.^[64][65] The Hoyas spent most of the second half trailing by about eight points,^[63] fell as many as 15 points behind, and never got closer than six points,^[64][65] and South Carolina used a late 13–4 run^[63] to clinch an 80–67 victory.^[63][64][65] Donald Carey — who connected on four of eight three-point attempts, the only Hoya to make more than one three-pointer^[63] — scored 20 points, Aminu Mohammed 17, and Dante Harris 13,^[64][66] but Kaiden Rice missed all ten shots he took during the game, eight of them from three-point range.^[63][65] Georgetown dropped below .500 for the season again^[64][65] and headed back to Washington to close out non-conference play with a four-game homestand at Capital One Arena.

The homestand began with a blowout win over UMBC in which Georgetown scored 100 points for the first time since December 2018 — and fourth time in Ewing's tenure as head coach — and improved its all-time record against the Retrievers to 5–0.^[67] Kaiden Rice bounced back from his ineffective outing against South Carolina three days earlier with an historic game, leading the Hoyas with a career-high 34 points^[67] — the first Hoya to score 30 or more points in a game since Mac McClung in December 2018^[67] — on 11-for-14 shooting from the field, and his 10 three-pointers (on 12 attempts)^[67][68][69] — including four in less than five minutes in the second half — broke the previous school record of seven in a single game, set by Mark Tillmon in 1990 and matched several times since.^[67] With his father Dikembe again looking on, Ryan Mutombo had his first collegiate double double with 15 points and 11 rebounds, both career highs,^[67][68][69] while Aminu Mohammed finished with the third double double (13 points and 10 rebounds) of his collegiate career.^[67][68][69] Dante Harris added 13 points.^[68][69]

In front of its largest crowd of the season by far — including former Georgetown and NBA greats Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning and former Syracuse standout and NBA player Rony Seikaly — Georgetown next faced Syracuse on December 11,^[70] the 97th meeting of the schools in a series that dated to 1930.^[70] It was the annual renewal of the archrivalry between the schools during their membership in the original Big East Conference of 1979–2013, when John Thompson coached Georgetown and Jim Boeheim coached Syracuse. Thompson had died in 2020, and before the first game of the 2020–21 season, Georgetown had named its home court "John Thompson Jr. Court" in his honor in a ceremony at McDonough Gymnasium, where Georgetown played all of its home games that season with no fans in the stands because of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.^[71] The school planned to dedicate the home court's name at Capital One Arena in front of fans when public health restrictions allowed a resumption of games there and with fans in attendance.^[71] Play resumed at Capital One Arena and fans returned to games at the beginning of the 2021-2022 season, but — although the name "John Thompson Jr. Court" appeared on the court at Capital One Arena from the first game of the season — Georgetown waited until a ceremony before the Syracuse game to dedicate the court, with Boeheim — in his 46th season as Syracuse's head coach — looking on with a smile.^[70]

Georgetown took the lead five minutes into the game on three straight Kaiden Rice three-pointers,^[72] but Syracuse responded with a 9–0 run and the Orange retook the lead in the middle of the first half.^[72] Georgetown had trouble scoring against Syracuse's strong zone defense in the first half,^[70] shooting only 37 percent from the field to Syracuse's 56 percent, and at halftime trailed 44–34.^[72] Ewing went with a smaller, quicker lineup during the second half to overcome the Orange's zone defense, using a rotation of guards and forwards rather than relying on a post player handling the ball in the middle of the zone, resulting in the Hoyas shooting 56 percent from the field after halftime.^[70] Georgetown opened the second half with a 21–9 run,^[72] giving the Hoyas their first lead since the middle of the first half at 55–53 with 11+1⁄2 minutes remaining in the game.^[72] All five Syracuse starters averaged in double figures on the season and scored in double figures during the game,^[72] but Georgetown's defense clamped down in the second half. Although the Orange's third-leading scorer and top three-point shooter, junior guard Joseph Girard III, went 4-for-6 from the field in the first half, he did not score again until 10 seconds remained in the game thanks to Dante Harris's defense — and to that of Tyler Beard, who filled in for Harris when Harris departed the game for four minutes in the second half after hurting his ankle in a hard fall.^[70] During the second half, Syracuse shot only 36.1 percent from the field and 3-for-14 (21.4 percent) from three-point range.^[70] The Hoyas made their last six free throws,^[70] and Georgetown took the lead for good at 75–73 with 1:11 left to play^[70] on a Kaiden Rice three-pointer — his first three-pointer after seven straight misses.^[72] Georgetown committed 11 turnovers, seven of them in the second half, and Syracuse outscored the Hoyas 42–26 in the paint, but Georgetown attempted 10 more free throws than the Orange and outrebounded Syracuse 38–31,^[70] and Georgetown won 79–75.^[70][72] Aminu Mohammed shot 7-for-14 from the field and sank eight out of nine free throws, scored 20 points in the second half, and finished with a double double (a game-high and career-high 23 points and a game-high and career-high 13 rebounds) along with two blocked shots, two steals, and a personal-best five assists;^[70][72] his two free throws with nine seconds left clinched the win.^[72] Donald Carey added 18 points on 4-for-7 shooting from beyond the arc and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line,^[70][72] while Kaiden Rice made five of his 15 three-point attempts to finish with 15 points.^[70][72] Off the bench, Collin Holloway scored 10 points, eight of them in the second half.^[72]

With Timothy Ighoefe still out of action, Jordan Riley out indefinitely with a shoulder injury suffered during the UMBC game that required surgery, and Jalin Billingsley and second-leading scorer Kaiden Rice (at 14.5 points per game on 43.3 percent three-point shooting) sidelined by a non-covid-19-related illness, the Hoyas — with only seven scholarship players available — were shorthanded four days later when they hosted a Howard team that was much improved from its previous two seasons.^[73] Bison fifth-year senior guard Kyle Foster scored a career-high 26 points during the game and Howard led 31–22 in the first half before the Hoyas took the lead for good with a 24–6 run before halftime.^[73] Both Aminu Mohammed and Collin Holloway fouled out in the game's final minutes, leaving Georgetown with only five scholarship players available, so walk-on Chuma Azinge stepped in and logged a career-high nine minutes.^[73] Howard got as close as 56–52 in the second half, but an 18–4 Hoya run followed that sealed the victory for Georgetown.^[73] Georgetown's defense forced a season-high 21 turnovers.^[74] It was the Hoyas' sixth straight home victory,^[74] and it improved Georgetown's all-time record against the Bison to 11–0^[73] in a series that dated back to 1999. Tyler Beard, who had scored a total of 14 points in the previous nine games of his collegiate career, came off the bench for a career-high 23 points.^[73][74] Holloway scored 15 in his first collegiate start^[73][74] and Malcolm Wilson finished with a 13 points and eight rebounds — both career highs — and blocked four shots.^[73][74] Two other Hoyas also scored in double figures, with Donald Carey adding 14 points^[74] and Dante Harris 10.^[73] The victory gave Georgetown a 49—0 record all-time against the eight programs that made up the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference at the time^[73] and it extended the Hoyas' winning streak to three, the longest regular-season winning streak for Georgetown since December 2019.^[75]

Georgetown finished its non-conference schedule by hosting TCU on December 18 in the final game of the annual Big East–Big 12 Battle.^[75][76] It was the first meeting of the schools, and the first game TCU ever played in Washington, D.C.^[76] Jalin Billingsley and Kaiden Rice returned to action, but Dante Harris was sidelined, having sprained his ankle in the Syracuse game and aggravated the injury during practice on December 17,^[75][76] leaving Tyler Beard to fill in for him at point guard. TCU jumped out to an early 10–4 lead, but Georgetown closed the gap and took the lead at 13–12 with 11 minutes left in the first half.^[77] TCU later jumped out to a 30–23 lead — the largest lead either team had in the first half — before the Hoyas scored nine straight points to pull ahead 32–30,^[76] and from there the two teams were unable to achieve much separation from one another; although TCU led for 26 minutes overall during the game^[75] — never by double digits^[75] — and Georgetown trailed 39–36 at halftime,^[77] there were 13 ties and 16 lead changes during the game.^[76] The second half was back-and-forth and Georgetown led 61–59 midway through the half, but then TCU went on a decisive 14–3 run that ended with 4:14 left to play put the Horned Frogs ahead 73–64, their largest lead of the game;^[75][76] although the Hoyas closed to 76–73,^[76] TCU scored the final four points to win 80–73, the Horned Frogs′ sixth straight victory.^[75][76] Aminu Mohammed had a double double (game highs of 21 points and 11 rebounds), Kaiden Rice went 4-for-11 in three-pointers and scored 14 points, and Donald Carey added 12.^[75][78] Georgetown's persistent weakness over several years in three-point defense^[75] — the Hoyas were ranked 10th in the 11-team Big East in defending against three-pointers^[75] — was on display, allowing the Horned Frogs to sink a season-high 11 three-pointers;^[75] shooting 27.9 percent from beyond the arc entering the game, TCU sank 42 percent of its three-point shots against the Hoyas.^[77] Georgetown wrapped up the non-conference portion of its schedule with a record of 6–5.

Conference season[]

The previous season, with Connecticut joining the Big East, plans had called for Georgetown to play its first-ever 20-game Big East Conference schedule, with a home-and-home series against each of the other ten Big East teams, but cancellations due to the covid-19 pandemic had reduced the Hoyas' conference schedule to 16 games.^[79] Plans again called for a 20-game conference schedule in 2021–2022, but covid-19 again interfered. Under the new Big East Conference policy for the season, any team unable to field enough players for a game, including for covid-19 reasons, was required to forfeit the game, and when covid-19 problems arose on the Georgetown team after the conclusion of the non-conference schedule, the Hoyas were forced to forfeit their December 22 conference season opener at No. 22 Providence.^[79] The forfeit temprarily dropped Georgetown's overall record to 6–6 and conference record to 0–1.^[79]

On December 23, however, after four Big East games had been cancelled due to covid-19 and with cases of the disease spiking across the United States, the Big East rescinded the policy requiring forfeits.^[80] It announced a new policy, under which a team would be required to play a scheduled game if it could field seven scholarship players and one "countable" coaching staff member for the game, but that no team would be required to forfeit a game it could not play for covid-19 reasons.^[80][81] Instead, any such game would be rescheduled if possible or declared a "no contest" if rescheduling proved impossible.^[80] The new policy erased Georgetown's forfeit to Providence and returned the team's record to 6–5 overall and 0–0 in the Big East. It also came just in time for the Hoyas to avoid forfeiting a second game, because on December 24 Georgetown announced that its game against Creighton scheduled for December 28 also was cancelled because of covid-19 issues on the team.^[81] With continuing covid-19 problems on both the Georgetown and St. John's teams, the Big East announced on December 27 that Georgetown's first two conference home games, against St. John's on January 1 and Xavier on January 4, also were cancelled.^[82][83]

Big East Tournament[]

The is scheduled for March 9–12 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Schedule and results[]

Notes[]

References[]