Early Warning Signs Show for Georgetown in Blowout Loss to Notre Dame
The wait continues for that first signature win for Ed Cooley and Georgetown.
Ed Cooley and Georgetown basketball need a spark. A kickstart to this rebuild that will energize the fans and breathe some life back into this program.
Saturday afternoon’s home game against Notre Dame, a matchup of two rebuilding programs in similar positions both off to 2-0 starts this season, could have provided such a boost.
Instead, Georgetown put up a dud in front of 8,819 fans, losing 84-63 in a game that Vegas had the Hoyas pegged as a 2.5-point underdog prior to tip-off.
After beating Notre Dame on their home floor last year in overtime, 72-68, this season’s matchup provided a good measuring stick opportunity for Georgetown under Ed Cooley, going up against Micah Shrewsberry— also in his second year at Notre Dame— and a Notre Dame program that is in a very similar rebuilding stage as Georgetown is right now.
The results were not kind to Cooley and Georgetown.
The quality in performance between the two teams was not close on Saturday. Notre Dame, while clearly still needing some upgrades in the talent department, like Georgetown, proved itself superior in many facets of the game, showing better ball movement, spacing, and shot selection on offense, while avoiding the frustrating gaffes on defense that plagued Georgetown for much of the afternoon.
Georgetown, meanwhile, looks like they are still very much figuring things out. Saturday’s performance didn’t inspire confidence that the coaching staff is close to identifying the answers that will help the team bounce back from a brutal loss in a game they needed to win if they had any hopes of building a resume worthy of a postseason tournament in the spring.
The team can’t shoot (313th in the country in three-point percentage, per CBBAnalytics.com), doesn’t move the ball well right now (177th in the country in assist percentage), and still cannot “defend a soul” as Ed Cooley termed it in his postgame press conference.
Georgetown’s defensive rating of 108.0, according to CBBAnalytics.com, is currently 197th in the country.
Cooley cited chemistry as the main reason for the poor performance after the game against Notre Dame. But Cooley is the one responsible for bringing in so much youth and inexperience to the team this offseason that has led to these early-season chemistry issues. He could have instead prioritized adding more experience via the portal. Right now, that decision to prioritize youth over experience is looking like a shaky one.
Georgetown fumbled a major opportunity on Saturday. There was excitement among fans leading up to this game. The #PackTheCap movement on social media was picking up steam, with Georgetown coaches even joining the trend. The student section was jammed full on Saturday afternoon. And all the fans got as their reward was a listless performance from the home team on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the District.
Two years in and Ed Cooley is still searching for that signature win. The longer the wait continues, the more fans you risk losing to the same feelings of apathy and disinterest that reigned supreme by the end of the Ewing era.
There is an argument made by some Georgetown that Cooley took over the worst high major program in the country and for that reason, we must exercise continued patience, even as we see the program squander winnable games against teams that were in similar dire straits as Georgetown recently too.
Georgetown has the financial resources and the recruiting talent pool in their backyard to engineer a quicker turnaround than what we are witnessing currently. When other schools with fewer or similar resources are doing better than you are, faster, then it’s fair to be concerned.
It’s OK as a fan to expect more from the program you support, especially when they talk openly about competing on the national stage again, restoring Georgetown to its former prominence, etc., etc. Having high expectations doesn’t make you a bad fan or a hater.
Ed Cooley talked openly in his introductory press conference at Georgetown about winning a national championship with the Hoyas. Fair or not, that is the bar he set for himself here. And yet, even grabbing an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament seems like a distant dream for Georgetown right now.
Georgetown fans are realistic enough to not expect Georgetown to be a Big East contender this season. But it is fair to expect progress this season on the court. The arrow for this program should be trending upward.
It’s early, so there is plenty of time for Ed Cooley and Georgetown to right the ship. But Saturday’s effort cast a shadow over the start of the season for Georgetown. How quickly can they engineer a bounce back?
I’m trying to be patient but I still see little evidence that this team — while more athletic and presumably more talented — is any different than the Ewing-era teams. Defensively, I see little difference. Embarrassing effort.
And yes, Cooley took over a dumpster fire. But I see other teams having immediate success with new coaches (Kansas State, for example) in this new NIL era and I wonder why that can’t happen on the hill. #pitino
I’ll continue to try to be patient, but is it too much to ask to see just a little bit of progress at some point? Because we haven’t seen it yet under Cooley.
Thanks for this article. Spot on overall. Game went about as badly as it could have -- like you said, all the excitement, almost 9000 fans, a real chance to take a step for the team, program, and fans. I am one who keeps preaching patience -- we are 1 throwaway season and 3 games into the Cooley Era. We have a highly rated recruit class, and lots of promise but very young. Also, we can't compare Cooley and Gtown to Shrewsberry and ND in year 2. ND returned a core of 6-7 players, many of them starters, and added its own highly rated recruiting class. We returned 3 players, 1 starter, and added 11 new players. If the difference between these 2 teams is familiarity and cohesion as a team, we can't expect the Hoyas to be where the Irish are. It's a rebuild and we have to think long game. TBS, Cooley has to provide answers as to what the game plan is offensively and defensively so we the fans have an idea of what progress is being made. Patience will be a lot easier knowing that.