As Rivals Make Moves, Georgetown Continues to Hang On Sidelines

Inactivity from Georgetown beginning to become cause for concern, as rivals shake things up and look to get back on track.

For a program that has said it is committed to making the “necessary changes” for next year, Georgetown sure is dragging its feet to kick off its offseason. And while conference rivals like Xavier and DMV rivals like Maryland make coaching changes to help put them back on the path to national relevance and sustained success, Georgetown’s lack of activity with regards to its two open assistant spots is going to really start to hurt the program if things don’t get pick up here soon.

Georgetown’s season ended on March 9. News that Akbar Waheed and Robert Kirby were let go by the team came out on March 12. And while some schools have fired their head coach, hired a new head coach, and assembled a staff already, Georgetown has yet to fill either of its two assistant coaching spots.

The program could be taking its time to find the best candidates for the job, but the truth is that time is of the essence here, and they don’t have that luxury.

Georgetown needs to land at least two impact players via the transfer portal, and it’s hard to attract any top talent to a program that doesn’t even have a full coaching staff yet— let alone one that just went 0-19 in Big East play.

Available impact transfers want to play for a winning program, first of all, but it’s also important to show program stability when selling your program to various players. Georgetown can’t sell that aspect of its program until it fills out its staff.

The problem that Georgetown is encountering is that (shockingly) not many assistants want to join the program right now. Patrick Ewing, who looks set to somehow keep his job after going 6-25 this season and 0-19 in conference play, likely will not last beyond next season, barring a miracle turnaround. Very few assistant coaches will want to join this sinking ship of a program for what could very well be only one year.

Factor in the manner in which Georgetown essentially scapegoated Akbar Waheed and Robert Kirby for the failures of this season too, and it’s not hard to see why coaches aren’t throwing themselves at the opportunity to join the Georgetown coaching staff.

Of course, if they had any level of foresight, the program surely could have anticipated this happening. The Hoyas are in a bad spot with recruiting (and now, apparently, hiring new coaches). But this is the path they chose, to protect Patrick Ewing for at least one more season and give him one more go at this, and now they need to make good on making the “necessary changes”— something they have failed at so far. Every day that passes is a day that could be spent recruiting players— with a full staff— that could help you maybe actually win a game or two in the Big East next year. It would be nice to see some urgency from the program in the coming days and weeks.

Two names that have come up in conversations with sources about potential fits for the assistant positions are Ryan Devlin, an assistant at George Washington under recently-fired Jamion Christian, and Brenden Straughn, an assistant coach at St. Joe’s.

Devlin just finished up his third year at GW, and has been a coach for the last 15 years. At GW, Devlin worked a lot with the team’s frontcourt players, and was also the team’s defensive coordinator. Devlin was previously on Christian’s staff at Siena from 2018-19. Before that, Devlin started at Penn State, where he spent four seasons as the director of player development under Pat Chambers from 2013-17.

Devlin’s local ties aren’t extensive. He coaches at Montrose Christian School in Maryland from 2008-09 under Hall of Fame high school coach Stu Vetter, and was also an assistant at Bowling Brook Preparatory School in Maryland from 2005-07. Devlin is from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania originally, and played college baseball at the University of Pittsburgh.

Straughn is an intriguing option for Georgetown, as a young go-getter who formerly was a Team Takeover coach before entering the college coaching ranks. Bringing Straughn on staff would do a lot to repair relations with Takeover, who is well-known for steering kids to programs who have Takeover alums on the roster or on staff.

Straughn is in his third season as an assistant with St. Joe’s, and is responsible for managing the team’s offensive attack, per his bio on the team website. He also serves as the team’s recruiting coordinator.

Before becoming a college coach, Straughn was an assistant at Eleanor Roosevelt High School from 2013-16. He also coached for Team Takeover from 2013-18, guiding TTO to the Jordan Brand 8 invitational title and the Peach Jam title in 2018.

With Kevin Broadus unlikely to come back, and David Cox joining Kevin Willard’s staff at Maryland, Georgetown almost has no choice now but to look at outside options to fill its staff. Why it doesn’t take at least one easy, sensible option already at its disposal and promote Clinton Crouch to a full-time assistant is anyone’s guess.

The Final Four, which takes place in New Orleans from April 2-4, serves as an unofficial convention for college coaches to meet and network with each other. That could provide Georgetown with an opportunity to vet additional assistant coaching candidates, perhaps.

If an announcement does not come within a week or so after the Final Four, that would be extremely concerning, and will mean Georgetown is even further behind than feared when it comes to recruiting players in the transfer portal. Every day matters, and Ewing, Coach Orr, and Coach Crouch can only do so much between the three of them when it comes to hitting the transfer portal. Crouch is still limited as a recruiter because of his current title, and if rumors are true, Orr could be taken off the road in a potential role reassignment.

Georgetown needs to show that it is serious about its stated commitment to making the necessary changes to put this team back on the path to success next year, and that it has a real plan in place to make those changes. Simply canning two assistant coaches and pretending that will fix things is unacceptable, and fails to address the root of the issue. If the program can’t be counted on to properly identify and address the main problem here— Patrick Ewing’s struggles as head coach of this program— then there is little reason to have hope for a turnaround of any sort next season.