LINKS: Fans Glimpse Potential Georgetown Roster

With 10 players, is Ed Cooley’s staff done for 2024-2025?

Your Georgetown Hoyas have released some names and numbers for the current team, presumably to aid fans in identifying some new faces in their social media videos. While the graphic itself can be higher quality in the future—maybe when they add another player or over the season—the outreach has not gone unnoticed. There’s a lot of talent on this team.

However, some fans may think that this offseason did not live up to the hype that Ed Cooley and those close to the program had trumpeted. Yes, Ed Cooley is adding some solid recruits and freshman, but he is only returning two players with BIG EAST floor time: Jayden Epps and Drew Fielder. When the roster turns over includes all-but-two minutes earners from last year, fans, in the NIL era, are rightfully impatient. In the modern era, if you want success, you either have roster consistency or transfer urgency. It’s unclear if Cooley sees that.

Here is the current expected roster (in reported height order):

• Malik Mack 6-1 170 (Harvard Fr. transfer)
• Jayden Epps 6-2 187 G So.
• Kayvaun Mulready 6-4 G (incoming)
• Curtis Williams, Jr. 6-5 205 G/F (Louisville Fr. transfer)
• Caleb Williams 6-7 F (incoming)
• Micah Peavy 6-8 G 215 Sr. (TCU grad transfer)
• Drew McKenna 6-8 200 G/F Fr.
• Jordan Burks 6-8 202 F (UK Fr. transfer)
• Drew Fielder 6-10 216 F/C Fr.
• Thomas Sorber 6-10 F/C (incoming)
• Hashem Asadallah 6-1 Fr (walk-on)
• Austin Montgomery 6-4 G Fr (walk-on)
• Michael Van Raaphorst 6-4 G (incoming walk-on)
• Mason Moses 6-5 G (incoming walk-on)

The chief complaint is that Ed Cooley and company could have done much better by adding a defensive-minded center to help share the minutes as Thomas Sorber develops. Center was a clear position of need last season, and one might think prioritizing a post-grad big man would be optimal. With reports of some names of a few of the centers that the staff, fans are wondering if Cooley should have aimed a little lower while the portal was hot. Hoyasaxa.com has a list of bigs still in the portal, and it’s not as abundant as one would hope. With Oregon scooping up Supreme Cook, the market is only getting slimmer.

We all hate to give the PC trolls fodder, but it’s hard to be a happy Hoyas fan right now. This is supposed to be the time of anticipation and delusion, not questioning. The silence from the Thompson Center right now is deafening—unless you’re a 2026 recruit. Over the past week, Georgetown’s staff has reached out to dozens of high school players and has been very active there. But have they given up on adding, e.g., a center or guard depth?

Seton Hall Head Coach Shaheen Holloway wants “a team I could play 10-11 guys, where I don’t gotta try to play one guy 35 minutes.” Does Cooley? Are the Hoyas set up to repeat last year’s late game struggles due to depth?

Sure, last season is behind us, but one can’t help but look back and ask “Was this all really part of the plan?” If the roster churn was expected, why not churn better players and a deeper roster? If the transfers out and roster overhaul were unintended consequences, then what was learned from that roster construction? Fans need to hear or see glimpses of a plan in this program rebuild.

Does Cooley still think that having only 9-10 guys available on the roster last year was a strong strategy? Did we learn anything about defense, injuries, or building a culture on the Hilltop last year? Is Fielder excited to play heavy minutes at the 5 and guard BIG EAST centers twice a week?

Georgetown lost 5 players to the portal in Dontrez Styles, Rowan Brumbaugh, Wayne Bristol, Jr., Ryan Mutombo, and Supreme Cook. They each had areas in need of improvement, but they largely weren’t the problems of last year’s squad. Hard to say that none of them would make an impact on this season’s squad. Hopefully the additions of Micah Peavy, Malik Mack, Curtis Williams, Jr., and Jordan Burks fill those roles (and more) in a way that can get the defense out of “abysmal” territory.

Still, it feels like the Hoyas are missing a center who can split minutes with the freshman Thomas Sorber. Again, according to the reports, Cooley recruited centers like that was the plan for several weeks, until it wasn’t.

Here are some links:

Georgetown basketball great celebrates Scotland community with youth clinic | wusa9.com

Maryland’s historic Scotland community is celebrating history with its Juneteenth Heritage Festival. As part of the festivities, Georgetown University basketball great Eric Smith held a basketball clinic for kids at Cabin John Middle School.

“We’ve been through struggle and we’ve always come out on the upside. Coming up I never wanted for anything, I never realized we were poor because that’s all we knew. But it was great. We had family, we had love and that’s all we needed,” Smith said…

“He called and we showed up,” Ewing said. “It’s all about giving back, giving back to the people of this area. It’s for a great cause.”

Report: Oregon basketball adds Georgetown center Supreme Cook | Ducks Wire

A day after losing N’Faly Dante after his waiver to continue his college career was denied, the Ducks adds former Georgetown Hoya forward/center Supreme Cook.

The 6-foot-9 graduate senior adds depth and size to what is already a very talented roster throughout.

At Georgetown, where he played just one season, Cook averaged 10.5 points and eight rebounds a game for a Hoya team that went just 9-23 overall and 2-18 in Big East action.

Oregon lands Georgetown transfer Supreme Cook | ZAGSBLOG

“I will be finishing my academic and athletic career at University of Oregon,” Cook’s commitment post caption said. “I would like to thank my family, the New Jersey Roadrunners, the Oregon men’s basketball staff and everyone who has helped me get to this point. Go Ducks!” …

“Supreme is just beginning to scratch the surface on his versatility as player,” Peddie (NJ) School coach Joe Rulewich told ZAGSBLOG. “His power and strength combined with his developing range as a face-the-basket forward, are going to help him make an immediate impact at Oregon.

“And Supreme’s natural ability and instinct to rebound the basketball will travel with him out to the West Coast. Oregon is getting a terrific teammate and leader on top of everything.”

Why Dan Hurley stayed at UConn: Texts with LeBron James, Billy Joel concert lead to decision to spurn Lakers | CBS Sports

CBS: That’s what I’m getting at. Maybe that’s something that’s in the future, at a spot maybe that’s better suited to you?

DH: Yeah, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe I don’t ever do it. I don’t HAVE to do that to fulfill myself. In the end, I love coaching and I also love control. And as whiny as everybody is about the state of college basketball, like, it’s not THAT bad. I mean, it’s not great, but it’s not like it once was. But hopefully you get a little better leadership and a little more structure and things can settle down a little bit. But at the end of the day, I get to coach 18- and 19-year-old kids. And you can make an impact. I’ll go sit at the draft in 10 days with people whose lives you helped change. That, to me, matters a lot. Once the money and the ego and all that stuff is out, I love coaching. I love to run a program. That’s what’s important to me.

Hoyas Long Have Pointed Towards Pendergrass | Hoya Report

A multi-talented 6-foot-9 wing, Class of 2026 Mount Zion Prep (MD) prospect Shane Pendergrass has heard from a vast array of Division-I programs since the official start of the contact period, June 15th. Georgetown, Marquette, George Washington, Boston College, Virginia, Norfolk State, St. Bonaventure, Xavier, Quinnipiac University, Bryant University, and several others reached out to Pendergrass in the last few days. The Upper Marlboro, Md. native was recently offered by Old Dominion and George Mason University.

Georgetown has been consistent with Pendergrass since Ed Cooley left from Providence back in late March of last year.

“I love the fact that a high level program like Georgetown is recruiting me,” Pendergrass said. “The fact that they are closer to home is even better, because that makes it easier to build the relationship”.

Rick Pitino lands talented big man Ruben Prey from Portugal to complete St. John’s roster | New York Post

The 6-foot-10 Prey has been touted as a potential NBA prospect down the road.

Prey, 19, nearly committed to St. John’s last summer, but opted to stay overseas.

He’s a skilled forward who can play both the four and the five and will battle returning forward Zuby Ejiofor and USC transfer Vincent Iwuchukwu for minutes up front.

Prey averaged 11.8 points and 7.1 rebounds in 16 games this past season for CB Prat and also played limited minutes for Spanish club Joventut Badalona.

Seton Hall’s Holloway on adding 10 new players: ‘This year I wanted to bring in guys that could compete’ | NJ.com (Adam Zagoria)

“This year I wanted to bring in guys that could f***ing compete,” he said. “My mindset was I’m bringing in a bunch of guys that could play and compete and I think that brings the best out of a team.”

Asked what he was looking for from the portal, Holloway said, “I wanted more guys that could play multiple spots. I wanted more size as far as at the guards’ spot. I wanted more guys that could get to the basket. I wanted some shooters. I just wanted a team where I could play 10-11 guys, where I don’t have to play one guy 30-35 minutes.”

He added: “If you watch my teams over the years, we get better as the year goes on. To our fans, it’s going to be a process, but we’re gonna get there.”

Seton Hall basketball: Shaheen Holloway says ‘we have more depth and talent’ on new roster | Asbury Park Press (Jerry Carino)

“I wanted more depth, more guys who could play multiple spots, more size at the guard spot,” he said Tuesday. “I wanted a team I could play 10-11 guys, where I don’t gotta try to play one guy 35 minutes.” …

“My (original) thought wasn’t ‘go get 10 new guys’; my thought was I’d (still) have a couple (more) guys from the team last year, and I’d have to get four or five new guys,” he said. “Now I said to myself, ‘OK I don’t want to do what I did last year, bringing (scholarship) guys on for practice (purposes) or just filling a roster spot. This year I wanted guys who can compete, so practice could be at a high level.”

Holloway employed a 10-man rotation at Saint Peter’s. That’s how he’d prefer the Pirates to play, with competition at every spot, fresh legs to wear down opponents, and options for the coaching staff in case of injury, illness, foul problems or slumps. This past season’s 7-man rotation, heavily reliant on the starters, was a tightrope act he’d rather avoid.

“So now I can look to the bench and I don’t have to worry about a drop-off, I don’t have to worry about playing X person for 36 minutes, because if I sit him for two minutes our lead’s going to go down,” he said. “I didn’t want that anymore, so I’m bringing in a bunch of guys who can play and compete and I think that brings the best out of a team.”