Hoya File Photo As a freshman Matt Causey averaged 2.2 points per game. He was a projected starter for the 2004-05 season.
For the second straight season, the Georgetown men’s basketball team has lost players in the off-season. In July the university announced the departure of rising sophomore guard Matt Causey.
Causey, a projected starter for the 2004-05 season, left the team despite having the best game of his young college career in the Hoyas’ last contest of 2003-04. He tallied 12 points and five assists in a 68-57 first round loss to Boston College in the Big East tournament. Throughout the season he averaged 2.2 points and 13.5 minutes per match.
Two guards, Tony Bethel and Drew Hall , left Georgetown in May 2003 following their sophomore seasons. Bethel transferred to North Carolina State and Hall ended up at the College of Charleston . As of yet, Causey has not announced plans to attend any other school.
The departure of the 5-foot-11 guard leaves the Hoyas with just 10 scholarship athletes for the 2004-05 campaign.
Georgetown ‘s recruiting efforts, however, have been successful. Josh Thornton , a rising senior at Caesar Rodney High School in Camden , Del. , made a verbal commitment in June to attend Georgetown . The 6-foot-1 guard averaged 19.1 points as a junior and is widely considered one of the top national prospects of his class.
Thornton is the Hoyas’ only commitment for the class of 2009. Alfred Aboya , a Cameroon native, retracted his commitment in April following the firing of former head coach Craig Esherick.
The athletic department also announced the hiring of three assistant coaches over the summer. Robert Burke, Kevin Broadus and Sydney Johnson have joined the Georgetown coaching staff, replacing Chuck Driesell, who accepted the head coaching position at Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria , Va. , Jaren Jackson and Mike Riley. Driesell and Jackson had just completed their first season at Georgetown .
Burke, who spent four years as an assistant to Head Coach John Thompson III at Princeton, brings 16 years of basketball and Division I coaching experience to Georgetown, including three NCAA tournament and two NIT appearances in the last six seasons.
Broadus compiled assistant coaching experience at various universities in the Washington area, including American and George Washington universities. He has worked as a summer camp coach and counselor for both the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks.
A 1997 Princeton graduate, Johnson was an All-Ivy League first-team selection his junior and senior seasons and received Ivy League Player of the Year accolades in 1997. He has spent the past seven years playing professionally in Italy and Spain.
