The start of the school year is on the horizon, and with it comes the start of Georgetown sports, so the Voice is here to provide a quick dive into some of the things that make Hoya sports so special.
Except this isn’t just a regular guide—it’s a Sickos guide. Sickos, united under a popular X account with over 100,000 followers, cheer for chaos and appreciate many of the absurd things that arise in the world of sports. In the sequel to our article outlining the weird and wacky parts of college football, we’re back to highlight the strange and unusual aspects of Georgetown sports which make being a Hoya fan so great.
“Rich as shit”
Georgetown men’s basketball is chaos.
The program has been the epitome of a Sicko program over the last few years, with a Sicko fandom to match. Whether it be the student-led “Dollar Beer Night” movement, heckling St. John’s players using quotes about them from their own coach (and inspiring St. John’s Rick Pitino to apologize for said remarks after the game), or head coach Ed Cooley telling a fan of a rival team that he is “rich as shit,” there is always something entertaining when it comes to Georgetown basketball.
“Rich as shit” is more than just a quote, it’s a #mindset. Ever since Cooley left BIG EAST foe Providence a year and a half ago, a program he alone built into a BIG EAST contender, he has been on a mission to fulfill his gamble and rebuild Georgetown into the proud program it once was. Since arriving on the Hilltop, he and his staff have been able to punch well above the weight class of a team that hasn’t made the NCAA tournament in years when it comes to recruiting talent. The staff has been able to, mostly, successfully take advantage of college basketball’s new era of transfer portal players and students profiting from name, image, and likeness deals (NIL).
At its best, Georgetown is a villain of the BIG EAST. The reality is, they haven’t been that in awhile, due to, you know, not being very good at basketball—but they are on their way. After all, how many basketball programs have had a now-defunct, half-baked, sometimes-messing-up-easily-Google-able-facts, hit-piece documentary made about them in the last year by another team’s fans. Under the “rich as shit” #mindset, Georgetown is on its way back. That’s what we call Divine Providence, baby.
Most importantly, Jayden Epps is now a junior. Celebrate accordingly.
(If you got that joke too, please touch some grass, I beg of you.)
False Hope
I know we just hit on the whole “Georgetown MBB” enigma in the previous section, but as someone who has covered it many a time during my tenure at the Voice, it is only fair to bring it up again given the pain and stress it’s caused me. In reality, no program at Georgetown has embodied false hope in our time on the Hilltop like men’s basketball. Despite annual buzz surrounding high-ranked transfers with attitude issues or early season wins against inferior competition (like last year’s shellacking of the Le Moyne Dolphins in their first ever Division 1 basketball game), the Hoyas have won only four BIG EAST games over the past three (!!) seasons. No matter the highs, there always seems to be a letdown right around the corner—like losing to Holy Cross, a bottom-10 team in Division 1, last season. Truly a program only a Sicko could love, which is exactly why we will be front and center in the student section every game next year. No matter what.
While Hoya football doesn’t experience nearly as many highs and lows as the men’s basketball team does, it is by no means absent of false hope. Georgetown football competes in the Patriot League, in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of NCAA Division I, which, unlike the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), gives every conference winner a spot in the championship bracket. As you might expect, this makes it easy for us to track the chances of the Hoyas making the tournament, as we just have to track the chances of the Hoyas winning the conference in a practice that we at the Voice like to call Patriot League Bracketology (pending trademark). However, despite being a football-only member of the conference since 2001, Georgetown has never won the Patriot League, although the league only has seven members. There have been glimmers of hope for this team, however. Last year, the Hoyas beat a ranked Fordham team in their first conference game, and followed that victory two weeks later with a victory over Lehigh to begin conference play 2-0, giving Hoya football sickos an opportunity to pull out their bracketology spreadsheets and dream. Alas, as is always the case with this team, that joy was promptly crushed.
Important stat on Georgetown football: In games where I (Ben) was on game coverage, Georgetown football was undefeated. In games where our illustrious Halftime Sports editor Andrew Swank covered them, they were winless. So, Georgetown football coaches, players, and supporters, if you’re reading this and want to flip the narrative around the program, the best way is to ban Andrew from entering Cooper Field. I’ll even make it easy for you, too: His NetId is as4873, and his X is @AndrewSwan69873. Additionally, I (Ben), will be accepting donations in the form of NIL in exchange for game coverage.
Also on the list of teams sure to give you false hope during your time on the Hilltop: men’s soccer, women’s soccer, and, last but not least, men’s lacrosse. They have won a bajillion (yes, it’s a real number) regular season games, and are sure to spend lots of weeks ranked, but have failed time and time again to reach the mountain top (no, men’s soccer’s 2019 national championship doesn’t count, as sports have only existed since fall 2021). Could that change? Absolutely—all three teams are full of talent and good coaching. But again, post-season success is often very luck and vibes dependent, and honestly, the vibes just don’t be vibing right now.
Georgetown Sports Venues
Georgetown is nestled within the dense urban landscape of D.C., and while that may be good for quick late-night Wawa runs, it means there is barely enough room to squeeze in all our dorms and classrooms on the Hilltop, and thus many sports are forced to play off campus.
This includes the softball team, which plays six miles southeast of campus at the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy (an after-school program with a Little League field), and the baseball team, which plays eight miles away at the brand-new Capital One Park in McLean, Va. But these commutes are miniscule compared to the odyssey required to reach the many home venues of the field hockey team. Last year, the team played all of its home games at Towson University’s field hockey complex in Towson, Md., a 64.7 mile drive from the Hilltop—a distance which the Voice determined was the farthest “home venue” from campus of any Division I school. Only real sickos would dare to take the journey.
Fortunately for our hockey stick-wielding Hoyas, the team only plays two games this fall in Towson, with the online schedule noting that 2024 home games will be played at the University of Maryland Field Hockey Complex, located a mere 13.1 mile drive from campus and putting the team at a respectable 20th on the national ranking for home stadium distance.
As for on-campus venues, a significant amount of campus land is dedicated to the home field of the football team, Cooper Field. In the team’s glory days, it played in the same venue as the MLB’s Washington Senators. Over time, the football team was suspended before resurrecting and playing in various sites on campus. They eventually settled at a space bearing the functional title of “Multi-Sport Field,” which we now know as Cooper Field. The field used to have the smallest capacity of any Division I football stadium until a 2020 renovation increased the capacity to 3,750 people. Despite the small size, the stadium never fills up all the way, except during the D.C.-area high school football championships. This makes sense given that Cooper Field looks more like a high school football field than a proper college football field.
Of course, no dissertation on Georgetown’s many sports venues is complete without mentioning Capital One Arena, the downtown home of the men’s basketball team which also plays host to the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals. With a capacity of over 20,000 fans, the arena is noticeably empty given the team’s recent downturn, and in a city populated with transplants, it’s often filled with opposing fans. On the other hand, the women’s basketball team, which had its best season in over a decade last year, plays its home games in McDonough Arena, located right next to the GUTS bus turnaround. McDonough Arena, with a capacity of 2,200, is more reminiscent of a high school arena than a power conference basketball arena (notice a theme here?).When big-name opponents like UConn come to town, the team is forced to play at the appropriately-named Entertainment and Sports Arena in Southeast D.C., which itself only has a capacity of 4,200.
These issues have led a handful of Hoya fans to look for a solution to our problematic basketball palaces: an arena that can host both the men’s and women’s teams while close enough to campus so students and fans can attend without sitting for an hour in traffic beforehand. Ideas range from remodeling McDonough Arena to replacing Cooper Field with a new basketball court. The solution that has driven the most talk among Georgetown Sickos is using the space occupied by the now-condemned Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn to create an arena truly worthy to be called the home of the Georgetown Hoyas.
And there you have it, the Sicko introduction to Georgetown sports. While we weren’t able to cover every crazy thing about sports on the Hilltop, we covered the most important ones. As a parting gift, here are some Georgetown sports events that we definitely recommend being in attendance for this year:
Football vs. Brown (9/21) (Homecoming)
Homecoming isn’t a huge deal at Georgetown, but if you’re looking for a home game that the football team might win, this one might be a good pick. Come for the pomp and circumstance, stay for what should be a good game against one of the Ivy League’s weaker teams.
Men’s Soccer vs Providence (10/4), Women’s Soccer vs Xavier (10/31)
Neither of us are ball-knowers when it comes to soccer, but we know that both of these teams are excellent opponents and will match up well against the Georgetown soccer teams which are actually quite good.
Men’s & Women’s Basketball Home Openers
The first game of the basketball season is an electric experience, even on the Hilltop. Hoyas filled with months of pent-up hope pack into McDonough and Capital One Arena to catch a hint of if Georgetown will be good this year.
Men’s Basketball vs Notre Dame
We can’t guarantee that many men’s basketball games will be competitive this year, but this one will be. Both the Hoyas and the Fighting Irish are in the middle of a rebuild, and Georgetown even pulled off a victory against Notre Dame last year. We don’t get many home non-conference games against power conference foes, so this one is a real treat.
Women’s Basketball vs UConn
Who wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to watch one of the most dominant sports teams of the past quarter-century? While we don’t have much confidence in Georgetown pulling out a victory, it is fun to watch our Hoyas play the likes of Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd.
Men’s Basketball vs. Providence
We had this game circled on our calendars last year after Ed Cooley made the surprise jump to the good guys from the Friars. Since last year’s game was scheduled over spring break, it’s our duty as Hoya fans to show up this time around to bestow an embarrassing loss on Providence.
