Georgetown Basketball: Breaking down Hoyas’ 2017-18 schedule

Georgetown released their full schedule for the 2017-18 college basketball season, and it does not look strong at all.

In looking at the schedule that the Georgetown Hoyas have put together, it does not appear that Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Athletic Department value quality non-conference opponents.

Georgetown is not part of the Gavitt Tip Off games this year, so it was another opportunity for coach Ewing to go out and schedule a good team that should build some RPI wins — especially if they play them on the road.

Instead, Ewing went the complete opposite route and made potentially one of the most lopsided and easy non-conference schedules on record.

Of the 11 games that Georgetown plays before they open up the Big East portion of the schedule, only one of them is on the road. The road game is at Richmond, which could be a tricky game, but Richmond has not been a good basketball program for more than a few years now.

Georgetown appears to have a small part in the success of the MEAC conference as they have scheduled four teams from that conference, along with one team from the SWAC—which also happens to be the worst team in one of the worst conferences in Division I.

The Hoyas do have the annual showdown with Jim Boeheim and Syracuse but, given the recent track record of both of these teams, that game does not possess the luster that it once did. Sure, Jim Boeheim has a bunch of wins and Georgetown has a ton of history, but Syracuse has had two really down years and has lacked depth in recent years. Georgetown has a new coach and has a program that is riddled with transfers of key players.

It’s hard to blame Georgetown for the creation of this schedule. After all, coaching is a business of winning, and the fans, media, and athletic departments put so much stock in wins.

So, in an industry where winning is everything, is it really a bad thing that the Hoyas are trying to help Patrick Ewing get his feet wet and gain some confidence by playing some teams they should beat? The RPI for Georgetown will still be in NCAA Tournament at large range because the Big East conference is so deep. So, there is no fault in trying to get some early easy wins, especially with a new coach and coming off a down year overall.

Patrick Ewing is a new head coach, and, while he was on the staff at Georgetown, his players are still going to have to learn a relatively new system and a new style of coaching. This may not be a bad thing as anyone with a set of eyes could tell that John Thompson III had lost the team and a lot of his players never did fit into his system, which is why they transferred.

With all of these factors, the fact that Georgetown created this schedule could serve a positive purpose on many levels. First, if Georgetown does get the wins this could help validate to Patrick Ewing that he is the right guy for the job. Second, it will help the players by instilling confidence in them that coach Ewing and his game plans are working. Third, it has shown that the NCAA Tournament committee values wins and, with this schedule, the Hoyas should get a lot of early wins.

If Georgetown doesn’t win their early non-conference games or if they somehow lose confidence and are hit by the injury bug, it could be a long year in DC. The Hoyas have enough talent currently on the roster and have a big enough reach that they should not be down for a long time. If Patrick Ewing can recruit the type of player that fits into the type of system he wants to run and can get through the first couple of years, then maybe Georgetown should start scheduling a little tougher.