Major Opportunity Awaits Georgetown in Big East Tournament

If the Hoyas can get past an inconsistent Marquette team, there is plenty of reason to see the Hoyas making a run in the Big East Tournament this week.

It has been an objectively good season for Georgetown men’s basketball this season.

When you get picked by your peers to finish dead last in the conference in the preseason coaches’ poll, and wind up finishing in 8th, that’s something to be proud of.

And so after a difficult, yet successful, regular season, the Hoyas will face off against the 9th-seeded Marquette Golden Eagles on Wednesday afternoon in the first round of the Big East Tournament.

A loss would be disappointing, of course, but wouldn’t be enough to derail the optimism that Georgetown fans should leave this season feeling.

Georgetown is playing with house money at this point. That’s what happens when you come into a season with nonexistent expectations and finish much higher than your competitors expected. Ideally, they should be able to play free and loose on Wednesday, and impose their will against an up-and-down Marquette squad.

A win against the Golden Eagles has the potential to represent a major turning point for the program under Patrick Ewing. And that’s why Wednesday’s game marks a significant chapter in the Ewing head coaching era at Georgetown.

Get past Marquette, a wildly inconsistent team that you’ve split two games with this season, and a world of opportunity awaits for you after that.

Lose, and you pick up your fifth season in a row of losing your opening Big East Tournament game, and the fourth season under Ewing of losing that opening game.

Would that be the end all be all? No, but it would definitely leave a sour taste in Georgetown fans’ mouths after an otherwise pleasant season.

At some point, the tide needs to turn. It could certainly happen next year, with an elite incoming freshman class, and especially the year after that. But why not get a head start? It would be nice to see this team surpass expectations and go on a real run and generate some hype to carry them into next season.

After Marquette, if you advance, awaits the walking wounded in Villanova, who is now without its two best guards in Collin Gillespie and Justin Moore. The Hoyas led the Wildcats by as much as 18 in the first half of their first matchup, and in their rematch on the road, Georgetown led Villanova with just 5:46 to go. The Hoyas would have to like their chances if they got a third crack at a greatly depleted Wildcats team.

After that, the Hoyas would face either St. John’s or Seton Hall, both of whom they have beaten this season. No eight seed will have a more open path to the Big East Tournament final than the Hoyas will this year: Villanova is dealing with several key injuries, Creighton is recovering from the Greg McDermott drama, and UConn, the hottest team in the conference, wouldn’t face Georgetown until the championship round.

A win against Marquette would be a major boost for the Hoyas heading into next season. It would be a real sign of progress for a program that hasn’t won a Big East Tournament game in the last four seasons, including all three seasons with Patrick Ewing as head coach.

A team that has won six of its 10 games after coming back from a three-week COVID pause deserves a nice ending to such a strange season, but as Georgetown fans know all too well, nothing ever goes as planned with this team, something that was made painfully clear during Saturday’s surprising beatdown on the road at UConn, losing 98-82.

Patrick Ewing has assembled an elite recruiting class for next season (one that may not be finished yet, if you believe some people), and started building back the foundation that was toppled during last year’s mass exodus. But at some point, this program needs to start winning again.

There is no better time than the present to bring back the winning culture to the Hilltop. That starts on Wednesday at 3 PM, at Madison Square Garden.