Young Core Forming Quickly for Ed Cooley's Hoyas
While the roster for 2023-24 looks thin, the young talent on the roster already looks to have Georgetown well-positioned for 2024 and beyond.
Ed Cooley is playing the long game.
There are multiple ways for a college coach to rebuild a program, as evidenced by the aggressively rapid rebuild by Rick Pitino at St. John’s, but it’s clear after five months that Cooley is taking a more measured, incremental approach as he looks to get the Georgetown men’s basketball program back on track.
We’ve discussed the holes that exist on Georgetown’s roster heading into the program’s first season with Cooley at the helm, but the young core that is already forming for Cooley on the Hilltop also deserves mention.
Hoya fans got a preview of it in Kenner League this season, with Rowan Brumbaugh (4 years of eligibility) being named MVP of the summer league and Drew McKenna (4 years eligibility) - who is supposed to be beginning his senior year of high school - proving himself to be one of the better players in the entire pro-am league.
And that’s not to mention Jayden Epps (3 years eligibility) and Drew Fielder (4 years eligibility), who have been slowly worked into playing shape this summer by the coaching staff after suffering minor injuries at the beginning of the summer, and thus were kept out of Kenner League as a precaution.
Brumbaugh and Epps are both set to play key roles for Georgetown in their first year as a Hoya. Both are in the mix to start in the backcourt, and getting that many minutes early on in their career will be beneficial for them as they develop at Georgetown.
McKenna may not yet be eligible for the start of the fall semester due to ongoing online classes he has to wrap up to graduate high school, but whenever he does join the team, he’s shown how high his ceiling can be in college, as an athletic, two-way wing who can be a primary scoring option for his team.
Fielder has impressed in summer practice for the team so far, and could surprise people with how many minutes he gets early on in the Georgetown frontcourt, especially if Akok Akok does end up leaving the program.
And we haven’t even mentioned Georgetown’s elite 2024 recruiting class, which is currently ranked #3 in the nation by 247Sports.
Thomas Sorber (Archbishop Ryan/Team Final) is the crown jewel of the class, ranked #26 overall in his class by On3 Sports in their updated rankings this week. He is joined by Kayvaun Mulready (Worcester Academy/City Rocks EYBL), ranked #70 by 247Sports, and Caleb Williams (Sidwell Friends/Team Takeover), ranked #135 by On3 Sports.
In that group, you have your center of the future in Sorber, a hard-nosed guard that’s strong as a bull in Mulready who can start at the 2 or the 3 in the future, and a solid piece for your frontcourt in the versatile Williams, who is a local product and can fill multiple roles on the team in the future.
The future is coming together quickly for Georgetown. Just look at what the roster for the 2024-25 season looks like right now:
Sure, maybe you get one or two players who transfer out (unless a disaster scenario happens and more leave, but let’s think positive), but right now, the core of the roster is mostly assembled for not just this year, but the next few years as well.
That kind of continuity is clearly what Ed Cooley is pursuing right now, and he’s right on track, as things currently stand.
Georgetown will be in position to potentially take one more 2024 recruit, or leave the remaining two scholarship spots open for high-end transfers that enter the portal next offseason.
Will there be bumps along the way? Almost certainly. Georgetown could be in for a very bumpy first year under Cooley, and the coaching staff will have to work hard to keep its talented 2024 class together and make sure it gets everyone to the Hilltop in Summer 2024.
But so far, you’d be hard-pressed to expect more from Cooley & Co. as they assemble a strong foundation for this new era of Georgetown men’s basketball. It will take time and patience, but the pieces of the puzzle are coming together quickly on the Hilltop.
Why would Supreme Cook have two years of eligibility?
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