There is no program in college basketball with a heavier crown than Georgetown, and no fan base more tired of waiting for it to fit again. The Hoyas own one of the sport's true blue-blood pedigrees — the 1984 national championship, three Final Fours, "Hoya Paranoia," Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson — and they have spent the better part of a decade watching it gather dust. Ed Cooley arrived from Providence in 2023 with a near-$6-million-a-year mandate to restore it. Entering his fourth season, the clock is officially ticking: after a 6-14 Big East finish, 2026-27 is the make-or-break year, and Cooley knows it.
The roster turnover is staggering even by portal-era standards. Eight members of last year's rotation are gone, including four starters — taking with them 135 starts, more than 81 percent of the team's scoring, and 5,343 minutes. The losses hurt in specific, personal ways: guard Malik Mack, who led the team in scoring and minutes two years running, bolted for Providence — Cooley's old school, the cruelest possible irony. Backcourt mate KJ Lewis headed west to USC. The sturdy frontcourt duo of Julius Halaifonua and Vincent Iwuchukwu is gone. Athletic wings Isaiah Abraham (Kansas State) and Jayden Fort (Charlotte) left, as did veteran glue pieces Jeremiah Williams and Langston Love. What's left is a foundation of three: junior forward Caleb Williams, who started all 33 games as a sophomore and is now the team's primary frontcourt piece; junior guard Kayvaun Mulready, with two years in the program; and junior project big Seal Diouf.
Cooley's answer was the portal, and he swung big. The headliner is Jaland Lowe, the 6-foot-2 point guard who broke out at Pitt with 16.8 points and 5.5 assists per game and third-team All-ACC honors in 2024-25, then transferred to Kentucky, where a shoulder injury limited him to nine games. Cooley confirmed this fall that Lowe has been cleared for all basketball activities — if the Pitt version shows up in a Georgetown uniform, the Hoyas have a legitimate Big East star at the sport's most important position. The backcourt around him is pure pedigree: 6-foot-3 guard Elmarko Jackson, a former McDonald's All-American who started his career at Kansas, and 6-foot-5 wing Vyctorius Miller from Oklahoma State, a hyper-athletic off-ball scorer. That's a backcourt with more raw talent than Georgetown has started in years — the question is whether it can defend and share the ball.
Up front, Cooley mined experience. Seven-foot junior Chol Machot was poached from Charleston to anchor the defense — though at 190 pounds he'll need help against Big East bruisers. That help arrived in August: graduate forward NJ Benson from DePaul, who averaged 11.7 points and 7.6 rebounds last season and has finished top-10 in Big East rebounding two years running, brings exactly the proven interior production Georgetown lacked. Benson even dropped 12 and 7 on the Hoyas in last year's Big East Tournament. Sophomore Josiah Parker from FAU and three-star freshman Justin Caldwell add wing depth, and the late addition of Benson — made possible by extended eligibility rules — gives Cooley a frontcourt with a real floor.
The schedule gives this new group every chance to announce itself. Georgetown opens with two exhibitions on the road at Wake Forest and George Washington, then plays a 12-game non-conference slate headlined by the second game of a home-and-home with Maryland, a trip to Clemson, a home date with North Carolina, and a Thanksgiving-week trip to San Diego for the Rady Children's Invitational alongside St. Mary's, Texas, and UCLA. Then comes the 20-game Big East grind from mid-December through early March — home-and-homes with UConn, St. John's, Villanova, Creighton, Marquette, and the rest. There are no soft spots, but there are plenty of stages: if Lowe is healthy and the backcourt gels, Georgetown can steal the kind of November wins that change a season's math.
The history is the weight and the fuel. John Thompson Jr. built the modern program into a cultural force — the 1982 final, the 1984 title over Houston, the 1985 final, the gray sweatshirt, the intimidation, the pride of a program that meant something far beyond basketball. John Thompson III's 2007 team reached the Final Four behind Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert. Patrick Ewing the coach delivered the fairy-tale 2021 Big East tournament title as an 8 seed at Madison Square Garden. The names on the wall — Ewing, Mourning, Mutombo, Iverson, Reggie Williams, Sleepy Floyd — are as good as any program's. The last decade-plus has been the fallow period: one NCAA appearance since 2015, the Ewing era's collapse, and three Cooley seasons that haven't yet produced a winner.
Which is why this season matters so much. Cooley is a proven program-builder — he made Providence a perennial tournament team — but Georgetown didn't pay him like a savior to go 6-14 in the Big East. The fan base is restless, the talent is finally in the building, and the Big East, while brutal at the top with UConn and St. John's, has a middle class that a healthy, talented Georgetown team can absolutely crack. Capital One Arena, shared with the NBA's Wizards and NHL's Capitals, needs a reason to fill its upper bowl for college hoops again. Jaland Lowe's shoulder, Elmarko Jackson's jumper, NJ Benson's rebounding, Caleb Williams's leap — the season will turn on whether the portal haul becomes a team. Hoya Paranoia was never about any single roster. It was about the belief that Georgetown belonged at the top of the sport. In year four, Cooley has to make the belief real again.
