I’ve never felt like our Hoyas needed a moral victory. Sure, we had the 2021 Big East Championship, but looking at the last six years all I’m reminded of is the sorrow associated with our mediocrity. With a new era on the horizon, it’s time to realize how far we’ve fallen and how much is currently at stake. The program that was once the university’s most marketable asset can only be described as laughable. So as we look to the next age of Georgetown basketball we must ask ourselves how we can save this dying program. And while you might not like it (we’re looking at you President DeGioia), it’s time to take off our rose colored glasses and open our eyes to the case for Rick Pitino
If you did yourself a favor and read our comprehensive list of coaching candidates, you’d see that our case for Pitino starts and ends with his resume. No matter how you view it, the man builds teams that win. Over his more than 30 seasons as a collegiate head coach, Pitino has won two national championships (both which still count in our books), been to seven final fours and won 12 conference championships in some of the most tightly contested leagues in the country. He’s a Basketball Hall of Famer, former Naismith Coach of the Year and has seen 25 players get drafted from his teams. He’s arguably the greatest basketball mind of our generation and simply put, the man can coach.
With all that being said, Georgetown basketball has found itself at a crossroads. On one hand, it can make another average hire, not change much and let itself to further fall into irrelevance. On the other, though, the administration can stop this downward spiral before it gets worse by hiring a real basketball coach. In other words, Georgetown needs someone who can assure results almost immediately. So while we love Rick Pitino for his pure coaching abilities, we need to realize that he is the type of coach who we can depend on to turn our program around fast.
Take his short tenure at Iona, for example. After being hired in 2020, Pitino took his first Gaels team to the NCAA Tournament, giving two-seeded Alabama a run for their money in the first round. Then, after failing to claim the MAAC’s sole automatic bid this past year, Pitino’s Gaels just won their second MAAC Championship in three years as they look to be a popular upset pick in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. In those three years, he turned a struggling Iona program that could barely crack KenPom’s top 200 into a MAAC powerhouse that is regularly selling out the Hynes Athletic Center. Now imagine what he can do at a program with more than five times the budget located in the best recruiting region in the country.
On the flip side, age is definitely not on his side. At the ripe age of 70 years old, Pitino has repeatedly mentioned that he won’t be around forever and that he is looking for one more job before he retires. But while we often look for that next generational coach who would be around for the next decade or more, having a short term coach who could appoint a hand-picked successor could be more of a blessing than we realize. So while Pitino’s coaching abilities are unmatched, we should also look to his equally impressive coaching tree which includes longtime NBA coaches as well as high major high major mainstays. If nothing else, Rick Pitino would act as the ideal bridge into the next era of Georgetown basketball.
Look, there is no sugar coating it. Georgetown basketball has reached rock bottom, but to say that is anyone else’s fault than its own would be preposterous. After years of mismanagement from the top down, it is time for Georgetown to stop messing around with its basketball program and start making decisions to pull it out of this endless cycle of worsening despair. So for our own sake, let’s be serious and at least consider the obvious option to pull our beloved program out of the cesspool.
