During the head-coaching tenures of John Thompson Jr. and Craig Esherick in the original Big East Conference between 1979 and 2004 , Georgetown developed a reputation for scheduling weak non-conference opponents , but during his 13 seasons as head coach at Georgetown between 2004 and 2017 , John Thompson III had sought early challenges for his teams during the non-conference portion of the schedule , scheduling ranked opponents , early-season tournaments featuring nationally prominent teams , and distant travel so that his teams could prepare for the Big East Conference season by gaining experience against challenging opponents while facing a demanding travel schedule . Ewing scrapped John Thompson III 's approach , returning to the earlier philosophy of arranging a weak early-season schedule . On August 2 , in accordance with Ewing 's wishes , Georgetown withdrew from the PK-80 – Phil Knight Invitational , a high-profile , 16-team , two-bracket tournament in Portland , Oregon , scheduled for November 23 – 26 , in which the Hoyas would have opened with a game against Michigan State , a preseason Top Five team , then faced either Connecticut or 2017 Final Four participant Oregon in the second round the following day , and finished two days later with a final game against Arkansas , North Carolina , or Portland . Big East rival DePaul replaced Georgetown in the tournament . Georgetown athletic director Lee Reed issued a statement explaining the withdrawal , saying " The Georgetown 's men 's basketball program is in the midst of an exciting time of rebuilding . Georgetown has a prominent , seasoned head coach who has begun this process , which will continue to develop in the fall . " The withdrawal reportedly left Georgetown with nine or ten open slots left to fill in its 2017-2018 schedule , which CBS Sports ′ Matt Norlander described on August 2 as " an enormous amount of open dates for a Big East program to fill this deep into the offseason . " But Ewing saw no need to pit his team against some of the toughest teams in the United States during his first season as head coach , explaining his decision to withdraw this way : " “ It ’s my belief that , why go out there and get my ass kicked to show my recruits that we need their help when I can stay home and watch other people get their butts kicked ... Do my recruiting , keep on telling the people we need that we need them , recruit them , and do my job to help my team , build them up and show them what my visions are of them , and win as many games as we can . ” Later in August , Ewing also threw cold water on the idea of renewing Georgetown 's rivalry with Maryland any time soon . After not meeting in a non-tournament game since 1993 , the Hoyas and Terrapins had met in a home-and-home series over the past two seasons as part of the annual Gavitt Tipoff Games between the Big East and Big Ten conferences , Maryland winning both games in tight contests , raising hope among fans in the Washington , D.C. , area that Georgetown-Maryland meetings would become annual events . On August 24 , however , Ewing told the press , " I ’m not thinking about Maryland . I ’m not sure if or when we will schedule Maryland . My focus is on getting us back strong . ” The Hoyas did not participate in the Gavitt Tipoff Games in 2017 , and Maryland was not on Georgetown 's 2017 – 2018 schedule . Discussing his scheduling philosophy in August with '' The Washington Post '' , Ewing said , “ The Big East schedule is going to be tough enough to handle . It ’s always been tough . It was tough when I was playing . So , you know , you do n’t have to play the toughest nonconference schedule . It ’s all about where you end up at the end . . . Do the best job that we can in the Big East and let the chips fall where they may . And hopefully we ’ll be able to be in the NCAAs and do our work there . ” Georgetown released its 2017 – 2018 schedule on September 12 , and it immediately provided one of the main narratives of the season . The non-conference schedule included no tournaments , and the average RPI of non-conference opponents for the season was a lowly 265.1 . The opponents for 2017 – 2018 and their 2016 – 2017 RPI rankings among the 351 NCAA Division I teams were Richmond ( 72 ) , Syracuse ( 86 ) , Mount St. Mary 's ( 137 ) , Maryland Eastern Shore ( 279 ) , Jacksonville ( 305 ) , Maine ( 323 ) , Coppin State ( 336 ) , North Texas ( 338 ) , Howard ( 339 ) , North Carolina A&T ( 350 ) , and Alabama A&M ( 351 ) . Maine was picked to finish last in the America East Conference in a preseason poll of the conference 's coaches , had not won more than eight games in any of the previous four seasons , and had not had a winning season since 2009-2010 . Four of the teams were from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference ( MEAC ) , ranked 31st among the 32 Division I conferences during the 2016 – 2017 college basketball season , and none of those four were among the top five MEAC teams of 2016 – 2017 ; moreover , MEAC coaches in a preseason poll picked North Carolina A&T – which had posted a 3 – 29 record the previous season – to finish last in the conference . Overall , Georgetown 's opponents had gone 116 – 230 ( .335 ) against Division I schools during 2016 – 2017 ; five of them had failed to win 10 games all season , while one had won 10 . The contractually obligated Syracuse game – part of a two-season home-and-home series between the former archrivals in the original Big East Conference – provided Georgetown with its only truly challenging non-conference game , and even then Syracuse was facing a down year in which pundits projected the Orange to finish next-to-last in the Atlantic Coast Conference . None of the schools had received an at-large bid to the 2017 NCAA Tournament – Mount St. Mary 's , a 16th-seed in the tournament , was the only team among Georgetown 's 11 non-conference opponents that made the tournament and did so via an automatic bid by winning the 2017 Northeast Conference Tournament – and none of them were projected to make the 2018 NCAA Tournament ; preseason prognosticators raised the possibility that none of them would make even the 2018 National Invitation Tournament . Other than a visit to Richmond , the entire non-conference schedule was at home
2017 Northeast Conference Tournament
2017 Northeast Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
2017–18 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team