Georgetown Basketball: 9 candidates to replace Patrick Ewing as head coach

Mike Rhoades

If high profile is the way Georgetown wants this hire to go, then this next coach is not the answer, but he’s certainly worth a look. There are a number of fascinating mid-major coaches who are ready for the next step up, and Rhoades has certainly proved that throughout the past decade or so.

After winning a D3 national championship as a player at Lebanon Valley, Rhoades got his coaching start at Randolph-Macon just a few hours south of DC, leading the Yellow Jackets to success at the D3 level. Rhoades then spent five years on Shaka Smart’s VCU staff before engineering a turnaround at Rice in his first D1 head coaching gig. He’s been the head coach at VCU since 2017 and has led the Rams to a pair of NCAA Tournaments, a pair of A-10 regular season titles, and just under 20 wins a year.

We don’t know what the future holds for Georgetown, but Rhoades has won games everywhere he’s gone and is doing good work in the A-10, perhaps the most prestigious of the mid-major leagues. He’s been coaching in Virginia for nearly his entire career and knows the DC area well. It’s not so much that fans would worry about the jump to a major conference school, but Georgetown might have their attention focused on more prestigious coaches. They’d get a great leader in Rhoades if they went this route.