Let’s Speculate! Potential Georgetown head basketball coach candidates

((ORIGINALLY POSTED ON 1/10/23, THIS ARTICLE WAS UPDATED ON 3/10/23))

Welcome to Let’s Speculate! on Coaches Database, where we go through programs that are or may soon be looking for a new head coach and speculate who they may hire next.

Today’s program is Georgetown, coached by Patrick Ewing since 2017 (parted ways on Thursday).

• Rick Pitino – Iona head coach
  • Pitino has done a (predictably) great job at Iona, coming off a second-straight MAAC title and potentially a second NCAA bid. The 70-year-old coach hasn’t exactly been quiet about his frustrations with the MAAC and its an open secret that this is likely the year he returns to a larger stage. Georgetown is a private school in the Big East with a strong history and a huge opportunity to change the culture and rebuild in his image. The job checks a lot of boxes for Pitino, while the coach checks a lot of boxes for Georgetown.
• Mike Brey – former Notre Dame head coach
  • The Maryland-native and former DeMatha player and assistant has been a D-I head coach for 28 years, but the soon-to-be 64-year old Brey still has time ahead of him and could really flourish back home in the DMV. His tenure at Notre Dame stagnated, with just one NCAA Tournament bid in the last five years, but he took the Irish to back-to-back Elite Eights pretty recently and had 16 20+ win seasons. He’s made it very clear he intends to keep coaching and his name is going to be high on a lot of ADs’ lists this month.
• Micah Shrewsberry – Penn State head coach
  • Shrewsberry has made an enormous impact in his first two years in State College and is going to be in demand just for that alone. He maybe makes more sense at Notre Dame – Indiana guy who spent most of his career coaching in his home state – but he is back out East now where he previously spent six seasons with Brad Stevens and the Boston Celtics. Shrews could have several high major ADs coming after him this month.
• Ed Cooley – Providence head coach
  • There’s smoke but is their fire? Would Cooley really leave Providence? For a Big East foe, no less? The real question we should be asking is this: has Cooley gone as far as he can go with the Friars’ program? A Big East title and Sweet Sixteen appearance a year ago is the pinnacle of his tenure thus far, but maybe at a bigger brand program like Georgetown he can get over that hump and make a Final Four.
• Kim English – George Mason head coach
  • The 34-year old English is an up-and-comer in his second season across town at George Mason after six years as a high-major assistant coach. What he lacks in experience he makes up with youth, enthusiasm and potential. As a young African-American coach from the area, English could come to Georgetown and stay there for years and years if he is able to find success.
• Anthony Grant – Dayton head coach
  • Grant is currently at his alma mater, Dayton, and has done pretty well with the Flyers. We will never know how far the 2019-20 squad would have gone, but they were 29-2 and ranked #3 in the country when the season shut down in March. They have been to two-straight NITs after Obi Toppin left for the NBA but are still one of the better teams in the A-10. Grant was really successful at VCU and did fine at Alabama, but it just wasn’t the right fit. Georgetown could be a much better destination for when Grant inevitably makes his second jump to the high-major world.
• Ryan Odom – Utah State head coach
  • Odom has kept things rolling at Utah State since his hiring in 2021, but his crowning achievement thus far was leading 16-seed UMBC to the upset of all upsets over top-seeded Virginia in 2018. The son of long-time coach Dave Odom has made a name for himself, going 147-94 in seven-plus seasons as a D-I head coach with three (soon to be four) postseason appearances. Earlier coaching stops include time on staff at both American and Virginia Tech, so the local ties are there.
• Robert Jones – Norfolk State head coach
  • Jones has built a MEAC juggernaut at Norfolk State, winning three of the last five regular season titles and going to two NCAA Tournaments. The Queens-native has been at Norfolk since 2007 and has been head coach since 2013, becoming the second-winningest head coach in program history last year. The flip side is that a MEAC to Big East jump might be too many steps at once, so Georgetown might prefer someone with at least mid-major experience.
• Mike Jones – Virginia Tech assistant coach
  • Speaking of head coaching experience, Jones is the only guy on our list who hasn’t led a collegiate program. However, he led powerhouse DeMatha Catholic HS (MD) for 19 years, where he was 511-119 (.811) and won nine league titles and one national championship (2006). He coached a number of future NBA players during that time, including Victor Oladipo, Jerian Grant, Jerami Grant, Quinn Cook, and Markelle Fultz, as well as several Georgetown recruits. Now the right-hand man to Mike Young at Virginia Tech, Jones could be a slam dunk for a program in the DMV, it’s just a question of whether or not Georgetown is willing to gamble on that.
• Chris Mack – former Xavier, Louisville head coach
  • This is tricky one for a couple reasons, the first being that Mack was recently fired after a pretty disastrous tenure at Louisville (though things got WORSE after he left, so who knows?). There are also pretty reliable reports that Georgetown tried to hire the then Xavier head coach in 2017 and he turned it down, leaving for Louisville the following year. All of that aside though, Mack’s tenure at Xavier was impressive, making eight NCAA appearances in nine years with four Sweet Sixteens. He’s the only other guy on this list (besides Brey) to have been a Big East head coach and actually won a Big East title in 2017-18. There’s no way Mack (53) is done coaching and a trip back East could be a perfect fit for him and for the Hoyas.