Georgetown hires longtime Providence coach Ed Cooley: Why it’s a statement hire

Georgetown hired longtime Providence men’s basketball coach Ed Cooley as its head coach on Monday. Here’s what you need to know:

• Georgetown fired former coach Patrick Ewing after six seasons earlier this month. He went 75-109 overall with only one winning season.
• Cooley, the men’s 2022 Naismith National Coach of the Year, had been the coach at Providence since 2011.
• The Friars went 242-153 under the 53-year-old Cooley, making the NCAA Tournament seven times. The team lost to Kentucky in the first round this year.

Backstory

Ewing’s final game with Georgetown was an 80-48 loss to Villanova in the opening round of the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden, where he rose to NBA stardom with the Knicks.

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Only two years ago, Ewing and the Hoyas beat Creighton in the Big East tournament final at the Garden, earning an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament. It marked Georgetown’s first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2014-15 season. However, the Hoyas lost in the first round to Colorado.

This season, Georgetown was 7-25, including 2-18 in conference play.

Cooley has also held a number of coaching roles with Team USA, and prior to joining Providence, was the coach at Fairfield University, where he went 92-69 across five seasons.

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

What does this mean for Georgetown?

It’s a sizable statement by athletic director Lee Reed and the administration: The connections to the John Thompson II era may not be severed, but they don’t dictate what Georgetown does anymore.

What Georgetown does is hire one of the best possible fits for the job. Cooley led Providence to bids in seven of the last nine NCAA Tournaments and was national coach of the year in 2021-22 after a 27-win season ended with the Friars ranked No. 13 in the final Associated Press poll. It’s a bit awkward to go from one job in the league to another … but it also means Georgetown’s new coach doesn’t need to learn anything about the Big East competition.

Cooley’s peers consider him one of the best at maximizing the talent he has. Providence didn’t always have elite players, but it won consistently. Given the resources, NIL infrastructure and recruiting turf at Georgetown, Cooley can now start working with more. It’s what prompted this move. — Hamilton

What does Providence do now?

Rage and sulk and throw things, for one. This is a blow. Cooley is from Providence. He is one of their own. And now he’s gone, and that is going to make many people angry and leave a lot of hard feelings behind.

Taking the emotion out of it … it’s still a blow. Providence has the necessary practice facilities to compete in the Big East, not to mention a pretty frisky environment for home games, but it’s not immune to struggling if it makes a bad hire or if that hire has a couple of poor recruiting cycles.

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Those who know athletic director Steve Napolillo, though, expect he’ll want to answer Cooley’s departure with a splash. What that means is anyone’s guess. Splashes tend to cost a lot of money, and the last coach left because he didn’t see a high enough ceiling. Would Napolillo try to bring Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley back East? Is this another basketball-first school that could tempt Penn State’s Micah Shrewsberry? Does he grab Archie Miller from down the road at Rhode Island?

Or is it likelier that Napolillo will be left to choose from a long list of qualified mid-major options such as Vermont’s John Becker, Yale’s James Jones, Colgate’s Matt Langel and St. Bonaventure’s Mark Schmidt? — Hamilton

What they’re saying

Taking the Georgetown job was “not a decision I took lightly,” Cooley said in a statement.

“I plan on hitting the ground running, getting to work on the court and cultivating relationships in and around the District,” he said.

Providence will begin a national search to replace Cooley, the school said.

“To our fans, let me state this without equivocation: We remain committed to competing at the highest level of men’s basketball,” Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, Providence’s president, said in a statement. “Our facilities, our fan support, and our record of success demonstrate the impact of that commitment and I have full confidence that we will identify and hire a new coach who will build on this strong foundation and lead Friar basketball to continued excellence on a national level.”

Required reading

(Photo: Bob Donnan / USA Today)