NEW YORK — Ed Cooley still believes the Georgetown brand is strong despite the Hoyas’ fall from the ranks of college basketball’s premier programs over the past 20 years.
Cooley spoke at Big East media days last week, where the program was picked to finish 10th in the 11-team conference, with no players receiving any preseason all-conference honors. The Rhode Island native is 42-57 in three seasons coaching Georgetown, after a 12-year run with Providence that included seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
As Cooley enters a pivotal fourth season, he defended the program’s brand and strength, despite the lack of recent success.
“Absolutely the mystique is not gone,” Cooley said. “Absolutely not. Yeah, have we had some turbulent waters? We haven’t had the success that we want — absolutely. But the mystique will never go away. You can’t erase history. You can’t erase dominance. You can’t erase Hall of Famers. We have not done what I wish we would do and there’s a lot of variations and reasons why — zero excuses. Year four we need to make a big jump. There’s no hiding behind a lack of success. We have to do a better job.”
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Georgetown hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2021, when an improbable run to the Big East Tournament title propelled Patrick Ewing into his lone Big Dance appearance as the program’s coach. The Hoyas haven’t been to the second weekend of the tournament since the 2007 Final Four, which was in John Thompson III’s third year.
Cooley took over a Georgetown program that hardly resembled the one from Thompson’s early tenure. The Hoyas won a combined 13 games in Ewing’s last two seasons from 2021 to 2023. Cooley left Providence, which he had turned into a perennial conference contender, to undertake a massive rebuild.
The Hoyas haven’t even been a bubble team under Cooley, and went 16-18 last season. Cooley cited injuries and late-game execution as two reasons the program has struggled to win under him. He has a point. The Hoyas lost KJ Lewis in February due to an ankle injury, depriving them of their leading scorer going into March. A year earlier, center Julius Halaifonua missed the majority of the season due to a foot injury.
To get things on track this season, Cooley’s staff prioritized experience, shooting and “know-how” as they assembled this season’s team.
“Those were the marching orders to try and build this roster,” Cooley said.
The result is eight newcomers and 11 departures, giving Cooley a completely remade roster. The Hoyas added additional ball handlers such as Jaland Lowe (Kentucky) and Elmarko Jackson (Kansas), two players who were highly touted out of high school but have had mixed success in college. Cooley predicted that Jackson would be one of the conference’s best on-ball defenders.
Lowe is coming off of shoulder surgery for an injury that limited him to nine games at Kentucky last season. When healthy, he could be one of the Hoyas’ best scorers and playmakers.
“The last college player I had that had a shoulder injury was the No. 5 pick in the NBA draft,” Cooley said of Lowe. “If his shoulder is anything like Kris Dunn’s, then I’m going to love coaching this kid.”
Injuries and availability remain concerns as the Hoyas enter the season. Cooley said Lowe, Kayvaun Mulready and Caleb Williams, the latter a Sidwell Friends graduate, were not healthy over the summer. Two international players did not arrive until August.
The Hoyas are also awaiting word on St. John’s transfer Vince Iwuchukwu, who was granted a temporary restraining order by a New York court to play this season, but could have his eligibility overturned. Cooley said the program doesn’t know when that situation could be resolved. Iwuchukwu went into cardiac arrest while at Southern California and has missed close to a full season over his career due to health issues, which is why Cooley said he has a strong case to be granted another year of eligibility.
Mulready signed with Providence out of high school, before electing to follow Cooley down I-95 to Georgetown. The junior guard said Cooley told him it would be a multiyear rebuild and his coach has done a good job of addressing last year’s issues with the current team.
“Sometimes we get yelled at for passing up open shots,” Mulready said in an interview with The Washington Sun. “But it’s a great problem to have. There’s a lot more options offensively around the perimeter.”
Whether Cooley is coaching for his job this season is unclear. Georgetown President Eduardo M. Peñalver started the role in July after a tenure at Seattle University, a school not known for its basketball success. But Cooley knows that no matter what, the program needs to take a step forward after years of national irrelevance.
“‘Can we finish the mission?’ is what our goal is with this group,” Cooley said.
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