Assessing Georgetown's 2022-23 Roster
With the roster remake presumably complete, it's time to take a look at the final product for Georgetown's 2022-23 roster.
With Qudus Wahab returning to the Hilltop on Monday, the Georgetown roster for the 2022-23 is presumably set, with (technically) 14 scholarship players for 13 scholarship spots, although that will work itself out eventually, as we’ve reported.
Here is the Georgetown roster for next season, broken down by the three main position groups.
Ball-Handlers (6): Dante Harris, Primo Spears, Jay Heath, Brandon Murray, Denver Anglin, Jordan Riley
Wings (3): Bryson Mozone, Wayne Bristol Jr., D’Ante Bass
Big Men (4) : Qudus Wahab, Akok Akok, Ryan Mutombo, Bradley Ezewiro, Malcolm Wilson
With the roster mostly set, we can look ahead to the coming season, and start to think of expectations for what this team can achieve, in a crucial season for Patrick Ewing, who will start the season out with the hottest coaching seat in the country.
With nine players leaving from last season’s roster (ten, if Malcolm Wilson does indeed leave) and ten players incoming (including Qudus Wahab and Wayne Bristol Jr., who technically was on last year’s roster), the 2022-23 Georgetown Hoyas will look completely different from last season.
That’s a good thing.
On paper, this is Georgetown’s most talented roster since either the 2018-19 team or the 2014-15 team.
2018-19 team: James Akinjo, Mac McClung, Jagan Mosely, Jamorko Pickett, Jahvon Blair, Greg Malinowski, Jessie Govan, Josh LeBlanc, Kaleb Johnson, Trey Mourning, Grayson Carter, Omer Yurtseven (Sat out), George Muresan, Jaden Robinson
2014-15 team: D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Jabril Trawick, Mikael Hopkins, Tre Campbell, Isaac Copeland, Reggie Cameron, Paul White, Aaron Bowen, David Allen, Josh Smith, Bradley, Hayes, Trey Mourning, Riyan Williams
In this writer’s eyes, the 2018-19 team was superior to 2014-15, but regardless, the talent level on the 2022-23 team will be drastically higher than what we saw last season, en route to an 0-20 record in the Big East.
There will be plenty of time between now and November for Patrick Ewing to figure out what his starting lineup is, but one thing’s for certain: he’ll have a number of good options to choose from.
The locks to start next season are Brandon Murray and Akok Akok. If Jay Heath gets his waiver, I would pencil him into the starting lineup as well.
That brings us to two spots: point guard and center.
At center, the guess here is that Qudus Wahab will slot right back in as the team’s starting center. He was Georgetown’s best big during the 2020-21 season, and their second- or third-best player overall, statistically, and there’s no reason to think he can’t have a similar impact this time around.
Could Ryan Mutombo or Bradley Ezewiro push him for the starting nod? Sure, just like Georgetown could push to win the whole Big East next season. Let’s be realistic here, for now.
Point guard is the position that will be the hot topic of debate this summer among Georgetown fans. After a rough sophomore season that came after a brilliant freshman season, rising junior Dante Harris has a lot to prove in Year Three at Georgetown.
Unlike last summer, when Georgetown turned away veteran point guards in the transfer portal such as Chris Lykes and Jahmir Young because of their belief in Harris, that will not be the case this summer.
Duquesne transfer Primo Spears, a three-time A-10 Rookie of the Week recipient this past season and just the fifth freshman in school history to lead Duquesne in scoring, will certainly push Harris for the starting point guard spot.
Spears can score at a high level, but his efficiency leaves something to be desired. If he can improve that area of his game, he could end up pushing Harris to the second unit, but it’s no sure thing.
Spears averaged 12.7 points per game on 36.7/30/74.5 shooting splits, which aren’t great numbers for a guard. His offensive rating of 93.9 was good for eighth on Duquesne, while his effective field goal percentage (40.6%) and true shooting percentage (44.8%) marks were good for ninth and eighth on his team last year, respectively.
Spears will also have to adapt to playing with more talent around him. His usage rate of 25.7% last year was higher than Harris’ was at Georgetown (23.3%). With Brandon Murray and Jay Heath in the backcourt, Spears (20.3% assist rate) is going to have to learn to spread the wealth with his talented backcourt mates. Luckily, Spears is good friends with Murray from high school, so that chemistry should help them on the court.
One thing Spears does have working in his favor is that he was more careful than the ball with Harris was last season, sporting a 12.7% turnover rate, compared to Harris’ 16.2% rate.
The good news about Spears? You can play him at shooting guard too. One of his best skills that was on display at Duquesne was his ability to score in isolation. Sometimes he can get a little too trigger-happy, but the ability to go get a bucket one-on-one is something this team was largely lacking last season. Spears gives you a Jahvon Blair-type player who can get hot quickly, whether he is playing point guard or more of a combo guard position.
With regards to Harris, next season could really go either way for him. The player that led Georgetown to the Big East championship as Most Outstanding Player is still in there somewhere. The question is, can Harris re-discover that version of himself as a junior?
Last season was a slog for Harris, both mentally and physically. The inferior talent on the team compared to what he was surrounded with as a freshman seemed to affect him. But that doesn’t give him a pass for everything that happened.
Harris’ defense suffered, posting a worse defensive rating (110.9) than he did as a freshman (104.7), and his outside shot continued to look as shaky as it did as a freshman, shooting 27.5% from behind the arc last season.
With his usage rate rising from 18.3% to 23.3% as a sophomore, Harris only saw incremental upticks in his per-game statistics. His turnover rate did decrease (from 20% to 16.2%) and his assist rate did rise (from 20% to 26.2%), so that gives hope that Harris can carry those trends into his junior year, and with more talent around him, see improved performance across the board for himself.
Ideally, the competition between Harris and Spears this summer and into the fall will bring out the best in both of them. Certainly, Harris has been vocal on Twitter about not backing down from any challenge.
If Wahab can give you similar production to what he did in 2020-21, this team could push for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament if they get competent play at the point guard position this season.
The one X-factor here at point guard is incoming freshman guard Denver Anglin, who is perhaps the best three-point shooting prospect in the Class of 2022.
Anglin has played plenty of point guard at the high school level, especially at Gill-St. Bernard’s School, and with his ability to knock down the three, you have to think he will get an opportunity to see the floor at some point for this team. The question is, is that as an on-ball guard, or off-ball guard? He has the ability to do both.
The guess here is Anglin starts the season on the bench, playing sparingly. At some point though, Anglin will get his shot, either backing up Harris or Heath, and if his three-point shot carries over to the collegiate level, he will have a role to play as a freshman off the bench for Georgetown. He is that pure of a shooter.
With Brandon Murray and Jay Heath (waiver pending) joining the Hoyas’ backcourt, it seems likely that Georgetown will feature a three-guard starting lineup next season, with Harris/Spears at the point, Heath at shooting guard, and Murray at the 3.
Murray and Heath are going to be the engine of the team next season. Murray, who averaged 10 points and three rebounds per game as a freshman at LSU, and was named to the SEC All-Freshman team, will assume the starring role for Georgetown, and will take on the primary scoring duties for the Hoyas, a step up from what his role was at LSU.
Heath, who played at Woodrow Wilson High School in DC, was second on Arizona State in scoring last season with 10.6 points per game on 42.3/43/74 shooting splits, after transferring over from Boston College, where he spent his first two seasons.
Heath, like now-ex-Hoya Don Carey, is a very efficient player, finishing second on ASU in offensive rating (102.2) last year despite only taking 12.5 field goal attempts per 40 minutes and being sixth on the team in usage rate (20.6%).
His eFG% of 51.6% was third on the team, while his TS% of 54.1% led the team. With Harris and Spears not being known as strong three-point shooters, and Murray shooting an OK 33.6% from three last season, Heath’s perimeter shooting will be huge for this team.
With two seasons of eligibility remaining, Heath will be a very nice piece in the starting lineup as someone who brings strong outside shooting, veteran leadership, and dependability. His addition went under the radar because it came on the same day that Tyrell Ward snubbed the Hoyas, but there’s a lot to like about what the veteran shooting guard from DC will bring to the table this season.
One of the best things about this season’s team will be its versatility. They can match up with nearly any type of team. You can run out a traditional starting five with Wahab at the 5 and Akok at the 4, but you can also go smaller and put Akok at the 5 and bring on 6-foot-6 Bryson Mozone and his 38.5% career three-point shooting percentage and play him at the 4.
If Georgetown really wanted to go big and get more length out there, it could let Heath be the primary ball-handler, put Murray at the 2, Mozone at the 3, Akok at the 4, and Wahab at the 5. That’s a lineup that would clean up on the boards, have enough three-point shooting at the guard positions to space the floor, and have plenty of length to clog up the passing lanes on defense.
The addition of Wayne Bristol Jr. will also give this team another shooter to bring off the bench and space the floor. At 6-foot-6, Bristol can play the role of a 3-and-D player for this team, and adds more length on defense for what could be a very switchable and athletic Georgetown defense, if the pieces are used properly.
Of course, there are questions with this team. In the frontcourt, the health of Akok, who tore his left Achilles two seasons ago at UConn, will be something to monitor all season. Akok, when healthy, is a dynamic, shot-blocking presence at power forward who can shoot the three as well. But he didn’t play much at UConn last season, his first season back from his torn Achilles. Can he handle a starter’s minutes at Georgetown? That will be a big question to answer this season.
Next to Akok will be Wahab, who Georgetown fans are plenty familiar with. Can Wahab improve from what he was in his first stint at Georgetown? Can he improve his lateral agility and be able to guard mobile bigs out on the perimeter? Can he learn to pass out of double teams?
From seeing several games of his at Maryland, the answer is: probably not. Frankly, Wahab looked to be the same player at Maryland as he was at Georgetown. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean he is still a flawed player who will struggle if he is kept on the court in certain matchups.
With Akok on the roster now, Ewing will be able to take out Wahab now when these matchups present themselves, but it remains to be seen if Ewing, who has made his fair share of questionable lineup calls, will be willing to make that switch proactively in games.
Just think: Imagine if Akok Akok was on the team that got gashed by Jabari Walker and Colorado in the NCAA Tournament? Things would have looked a lot different if it was Akok covering Walker out on the perimeter, instead of Wahab.
This is a deep and versatile team that Ewing and his staff have assembled. It is now on Ewing to mix the ingredients in the gumbo properly together.
In an ideal world, you run an 8- or 9-man rotation and have that be it. Ewing usually trims his rotation down by conference play, but he has not shown a consistent ability yet in five years as coach to get a handle on rotations or substitution patterns. With so many options now, he will have a lot of flexibility with these decisions, but it will also require more in-game management from him.
Will he go away from subbing three or four players in at a time finally? Will he embrace a small ball lineup with Akok at the 5 when it’s needed? This all remains to be seen. Just because there is a lot of talent on a team, doesn’t mean the results will follow (looking at you, Travis Steele and Xavier!). It’s now on the head coach to make the pieces he has assembled fit together properly.
The job that Ewing and his new-ish staff did in remaking the roster this offseason is about as good as you could hope for a team coming off an 0-20 Big East season. They got their stud in Brandon Murray, an anchor in the middle in Wahab, a high-ceiling forward in Akok, and two strong additions in the backcourt in Spears and Heath.
There really are no excuses for Ewing this season with the team he has assembled now. It’s time for him to show that he is the man for the job at Georgetown, and can lead this program back to relevancy, soon. He has the right ingredients to make that happen now.
Hoping a healthy Riley is a different dude as well. From an on ball defender/slasher. Last years team could’ve really used his athleticism.