Marathon, Not a Sprint: Cooley's Georgetown Rebuild Taking Hold Behind the Scenes
The recruiting may not be red-hot like Hoya fans hoped right away, but Ed Cooley is pulling the right strings and making the necessary adjustments behind the scenes to fix Georgetown basketball.
Georgetown’s offseason, after an initial flurry of commitments that was highlighted by Jayden Epps, Rowan Brumbaugh, and Dontrez Styles, could best be described as being like a duck: Calm above the surface, and paddling like hell underneath it.
After their pursuit of Hunter Dickinson ended up with Georgetown being left empty-handed, the Hoyas’ odds of putting together a roster in Year One under Ed Cooley that could make the NCAA Tournament decreased significantly.
Since Dickinson made his move to Kansas, Georgetown has added Kansas State wing Ismael Massoud, and 2024 big man Thomas Sorber (Archbishop Ryan/Team Final). Both players are solid additions, but some fans have still been looking for more, especially when they look over at fellow Big East rival St. John’s, who has a top-5 incoming transfer class under new head coach Rick Pitino.
Fans are right to worry about Georgetown’s plan at the center position for 2023 at this point, with the list of suitable options in the portal dwindling at this point, but the work being done behind the scenes to set Georgetown up for future success shouldn’t go unnoticed and unappreciated.
Cooley, in a month and a half on the job, has — among other things:
Rebuilt relationships with donors and revamped Georgetown’s NIL operations
Smoothed over relationships with local AAU and high school programs (e.g. Team Takeover and Gonzaga)
Focused on improving the student-athlete living experience on-campus for his players
Made legitimate outreach to the student body to build interest and support on-campus
Installed a social media-specific staffer to revamp Georgetown’s downtrodden and outdated social media
None of these items are moves that will directly translate to wins on the court in 2023. Taken individually, they aren’t all that exciting, but collectively, these are examples of the finer details that need to be addressed for a high major college basketball program to be successful in this day and age.
Georgetown may not be on fire in the portal like St. John’s has been, but they have made important changes behind the scenes already (with more to come) that will set this team up for further success in future years and make it easier to land bona fide talent instead of worrying about getting beat out for top-tier talent by blue bloods every time.
The roster additions that Georgetown has made are quality moves that should be the foundation of what will be a good-to-very good team in the 2024-25 season and beyond.
Epps, Brumbaugh, and Styles are all former four-star recruits out of high school with multiple years of college eligibility left. Massoud shot 41.8% from three-point range last season, and brings important veteran leadership to a team that is in need of a culture reset.
Now, this isn’t to say that Cooley and his staff have been perfect this offseason. The fact of the matter is they have struck out on several center targets that they have gone after hard this spring. They have aimed high, and haven’t been able to reel in anyone yet. There is still time, but things have not gone according to plan there.
If you needed any evidence that Georgetown is still on the lookout for a center in the portal, here’s this: Georgetown tried to make a late play for Kentucky PF/C Lance Ware before he committed to Villanova, per source, but Ware was too far down the line with the Wildcats for the Hoyas to make any real headway there.
Another center in the portal, from a Big 12 school, wanted a promise of an NIL offer in excess of $1 million just to have a conversation with Georgetown.
The Hoyas have four open scholarship spots left for the 2023-24 season, but according to a source within the program, Cooley and his staff are likely to leave the 13th scholarship spot open at this time, meaning that it’s more likely that only three more players are going to be added, instead of four.
Cam Spencer is the player to watch most for right now with Georgetown. The Hoyas made an aggressive offer to Spencer to entice him to enter the transfer portal, and the Hoyas are considered one of the leaders for Spencer at this moment. However, as with everything in the portal these days, that can change quickly depending on what other NIL offers Spencer receives from other schools who may have better rosters than Georgetown’s at the moment.
According to one source with knowledge of Spencer’s recruitment, Spencer has received interest from both Kansas and Kentucky since entering the portal.
The 6-foot-4 Rutgers guard, from Davidsonville, Maryland, was the team’s leading scorer last season (13.2 points per game) and had scorching shooting splits of 43/44/90 as a Scarlet Knight.
Cam’s brother, Pat, was a four-time All-American lacrosse player at Loyola Maryland, and won the Tewaaraton Award in 2019. Pat transferred to Northwestern as a graduate transfer to play college basketball in 2019-20.
With Georgetown likely adding three more faces, and Spencer hopefully being one such addition, the guess here would be Georgetown adding one big, and potentially one developmental wing/guard, with the other two spots.
While it’s unclear who Georgetown is targeting at center right now, 2024 four-star wing Drew McKenna (Glenelg Country School/Team Loaded) is a name to watch for Georgetown.
As with Thomas Sorber, who has flirted with re-classifying but currently looks to be staying in the Class of 2024 despite Ed Cooley’s best efforts, McKenna has been rumored to be open to re-classifying, and that could be an option if he came to Georgetown.
Currently, there is no known timetable for a decision from McKenna, but he recently listed Georgetown in his Top Three schools on May 3, along with Xavier and Butler.
If Georgetown can land Spencer, along with a big in the portal, the team should be set up for a competitive season in Year One under Cooley, which should be seen as a step in the right direction coming off the last two years that this program has endured under Patrick Ewing.
The size of the rebuild in front of Ed Cooley should not be scoffed at. Cooley and Georgetown are facing a multi-year rebuild that involves restructuring many parts about how this program operates, all while being expected to recruit hard and build a team for the 2023-24 season.
In this writer’s opinion, Cooley is doing a very good job so far of threading that needle of building both a team (for this season) and a program (for the long-term).
It’s going to take some patience, and this program is going to take some lumps along the way. But the early returns are encouraging for Georgetown under Ed Cooley, just maybe not in the way (recruiting) that many hoped for right away.