Coach Patrick Ewing and Georgetown have two more opportunities to avoid an ignominious historical feat.
The Hoyas’ first chance will come Wednesday night at Seton Hall in Newark, N.J.
Georgetown (6-22, 0-17 Big East), on an 18-game losing streak overall, is two losses away from the worst season in the 43-year history of the Big East Conference.
An 0-19 record would brand the Hoyas as the fourth team to post a winless conference season … and with the most defeats. Miami (1993-94) and DePaul (2008-09) posted 0-18 league records, and Providence went 0-6 in the first season of the Big East (1979-80).
One of the Hoyas’ COVID-19-affected games, at home against Xavier, was not rescheduled. After Wednesday’s matchup with Seton Hall (18-9, 9-8), the Hoyas will visit Xavier on Saturday to end the regular season.
Georgetown made a surprising run as the No. 8 seed to win last year’s Big East Tournament and earn the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid, but 2021-22 marked a giant step backward.
Ewing, one of the greatest players in Georgetown history, has come under scrutiny amid the once-proud program’s struggles.
“Of course, I want to be back here,” Ewing said after Georgetown’s 86-77 loss to UConn on Saturday. “But in this position and this job, whatever happens will happen. I’m hoping that I’ll be back and doing something that I love at a place that I love and getting us back to being the king of the hill.”
Seton Hall defeated Xavier 82-66 in Cincinnati on Saturday for its sixth win in eight games. Jared Rhoden scored a career-high 30 points and Tray Jackson went 5 for 5 from 3-point range to give the Pirates the resume-strengthening 16-point win.
“I thought in the first half that was the best we passed the ball all year, which gave us easy shots and opportunities,” Pirates coach Kevin Willard said in his postgame radio interview.
Rhoden leads Seton Hall with an average of 16.1 points per game, tied for fifth in the Big East. Aminu Mohammed leads Georgetown in scoring (14.1 ppg) and rebounding (8.0 per game), with Donald Carey adding 14.0 points per game.
When the teams met on Feb. 1 in Washington, D.C., Seton Hall eked out a 70-63 win. Jackson led all scorers with 21 points, including five 3-pointers. The Pirates made five more triples than the Hoyas and outrebounded them 43-36.
–Field Level Media
