Junior guard Malik Mack is hungry to win this season. The hometown hero, who averaged 12.9 points and 4.3 assists last year, sees this season as a chance to assume a larger role on the team as both a player and leader.
“It’s another opportunity to rise,” Mack told the Voice in an interview. “A lot of the people here now are transfers and they’re trying to learn more about the program.”
As a second-year Hoya, Mack believes he can help these new members settle into the team’s scheme.
“I don’t see it as pressure. I see it as a responsibility. Everybody has a job to do, that’s just part of my job,” Mack said.
Mack credits former Hoya guard Micah Peavy, now in the NBA with the New Orleans Pelicans, as his role model for what a leader should be.
“He was an everyday guy. […] Just doing everything right, being a professional,” Mack said. “I learned a lot from Micah, seeing how to be focused, seeing how to block out distractions, seeing how to come back from adversity.”
At his core, Mack wants to enable those around him to succeed. He believes he’s positioned to do this partially because Mack himself previously transferred from Harvard University and plans to use that experience to connect with new faces on the roster, many of whom are transfers themselves.
“I definitely feel like I can relate to the players, you know, coming to a new environment with new coaches, new coaching style, new play style,” Mack said. “It’s a little bit of an adjustment period.”
He hopes that this year he can act as a “glue” between the coaches and new players, he said in an interview with the Voice. Forging these relationships is at the core of Mack’s style of leadership. For him, building bonds is part of the way he grew up.
“I grew up in a tight-knit family,” Mack told the Voice. “I came back to college in my hometown, so family is very important.”
Mack’s father introduced him to basketball before kindergarten, and the two developed a shared love for the NBA. The young point guard idolized Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, but remained unfamiliar with the sport at the college level in his early childhood. However, once introduced, Mack would fall in love with Georgetown.
“My best friend, Kevin, his grandmother worked at Georgetown,” Mack said. “So when we was younger, we used to come to the game [and] sit right behind the bench.”
Playing college basketball became Mack’s dream and being able to realize this childhood dream has driven his desire to be a leader. And it isn’t just team members Mack hopes to inspire, it’s the next generations of college athletes too.
“I had to live out my dream, so it definitely means a lot, especially for all the kids coming up behind me, just wanting to be a good role model, a good inspiration to the youth,” Mack said. “It’s a lot of high school kids that I interact with.”
Mack values his academics as much as basketball, something his mother instilled in him. So he left D.C. to play his freshman year with the Harvard Crimson. Still, he could not resist eventually coming home to the Hilltop.
“I always wanted to play in my hometown when I got to college,” Mack said. “When the opportunity presented itself, when I was in the portal, it was just something that, once I took my visit, it was like it’s something I couldn’t pass up.”
That lifelong love of Georgetown gives Mack extra motivation to restore the school’s basketball dominance.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get us to the NCAA tournament and to make a push once we get there,” Mack said.
At the end of the 2024-25 season, Mack decided he would spend the offseason developing new parts of his game in pursuit of his first tournament appearance.
“In the offseason, there was a couple of things I wanted to focus on. First thing being my strength, my physical strength, being able to take the bumps in the BIG EAST,” Mack said. “Second thing was probably my consistency shooting the ball. And then I’ll say the third thing I worked on was my decision making.”
His teammates have taken notice. During a three-point drill in practice, the Voice watched other players call his shot before the ball left his hand.
After player injuries stifled Georgetown last season, Mack feels eager to get back into BIG EAST play. While he emphasized taking it one game at a time, he is ready to play one particular rival.
“If there was one game on the calendar that we want to get, imma say the Providence game because of just how rowdy that crowd is on the road,” Mack told the Voice. The Hoyas play at Providence College on Jan. 24, 2026, before facing the Friars at home in the season finale on Mar. 7.
But when Mack isn’t in the gym, on the road with the team, or playing at Capital One Arena, he’ll be living the life of a normal Georgetown student. He’ll be reading and watching movies in his free time, especially Christopher Nolan films. He’ll be ordering his favorite chicken tenders at Epi’s. Finally, he’ll be hoping, just like his classmates, that Georgetown basketball can make it back to the top.
