With an exciting season of Georgetown University basketball right around the corner, the Hoyas are looking to emerge as a prominent force in the Big East conference. Coming off a 9-23 (2-18 Big East) season, Head Coach Ed Cooley has reshaped the core of the Georgetown men’s team through bold offseason recruiting, with the team bringing in nine first-years and four transfers.
The Hoyas’ success this season will likely depend on the play of their key summer pickup, sophomore Malik Mack, who was last year’s Ivy League rookie of the year at Harvard University. The point guard averaged 17.2 points, 4 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game while shooting an impressive 41% from the field.
Mack, an Oxon Hill, Md. native who attended high school at St. John’s College in Washington, D.C., said he is excited to start a new chapter of his career with Georgetown after the hometown connection drew him to transfer to the Hilltop.
“Georgetown was a good option for me because of the academics and then as well as being in my hometown,” Mack told The Hoya. “My process was just trying to find a field where the head coaches wanted me at their school, made me a priority, and then just trying to build a relationship with the head coach in that short amount of time that I had.”
Of the Hoyas’ main rotation players last season, only two — star junior guard Jayden Epps and sophomore forward/center Drew Fielder — return, meaning that the chemistry between Mack, Epps and the team’s other new additions, like transfer sophomore forward Jordan Burks and transfer graduate guard/forward Micah Peavy, will be crucial.
Mack said he has built relationships with his teammates and begun to adjust to life and basketball at Georgetown.
“Jayden Epps, who’s been here last year, has kind of a similar lifestyle to me in terms of things we have to handle off the court,” Mack said. “And then guys like Micah Peavy, Jordan Burks, just people that’ve played on this level before, showing me how to handle the new lifestyle.”
Mack said the team has been building camaraderie throughout preseason workouts.
“The chemistry is getting there, it’s building,” Mack said. “Fourteen guys, at first, we didn’t really know each other, but we got to spend time throughout the summer and work together throughout the preseason. We’ve been building our chemistry both on and off the court.”
Mack said he has been working hard during the offseason on his all-around skills as a point guard and has been intentional about working to become physically stronger.
“I feel like something that I’ve been working on a lot was just getting in the weight room, getting stronger,” Mack said. “I know that a lot of people try to have that knock on me and being a smaller guard, but I feel like that’s something I’ve been able to do up throughout the summer.”
Although Mack starred in the Ivy League last season and played well against power-conference opponents — scoring 27 points against Indiana University of the Big Ten and 18 against the ACC’s Boston College — facing Big East opponents like defending national champion University of Connecticut (UConn) and top-ten NCAA tournament seeds like Marquette University and Creighton University will be a step up.
Mack, though, said he welcomes the challenge.
“I’m excited to experience the competition night in and night out,” Mack said. “I got to go through that a little bit in the Ivy League going up against guys like Tyler Perkins and Clark Slajchert, just being able to go against those kinds of guys, but knowing that on this level is a bit different in terms of the size and the physicality.”
Both Perkins and Slajchert, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania, transferred to power-conference teams this season — Perkins to Villanova and Slajchert to Southern California.
Mack will look to build on his prior Ivy League stardom this season. On Oct. 28, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame selected him as one of 20 players on the watchlist for the 2025 Bob Cousy point guard of the year award, a prestigious honor that recognizes the top point guard in Division I college basketball.
“Being named to the preseason watchlist was an honor, but I’m shooting to win that award,” Mack said.
Despite his personal aspirations, Mack said he wants to put the team first.
“If you could win as a team, that team success will have individual success to follow,” Mack said. “I want our identity to be a tough team, a physical team that plays fast with excitement and is a joy to watch.”
The Hoyas have not made the NCAA tournament since 2021, when a Cinderella run through the Big East tournament sent them to the postseason despite a 13-13 (7-9 Big East) record. In their past 10 seasons, they have only qualified for the tournament twice.
Mack said he wants to qualify for March Madness this year.
“A successful season, I feel like, as a team, is making the tournament, trying to make a tournament run,” Mack said. “I feel like that’ll be our successful year. And then individually, just playing for the standard that I set for myself last year, just being able to live up to that standard and continue to put up the same numbers.”
As Mack gets ready to make his Georgetown debut at McDonough Arena Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. in the team’s opening night game against Lehigh University, he said he hoped to see fans pack the stands.
“Georgetown is on the rise, and we’ll be back to where we are supposed to be sooner than you can expect,” Mack said. “We need the fans.”