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Things have not worked out very well for Georgetown since Ed Cooley was hired to helm the men’s basketball team in 2023. The Hoyas are once again on track to miss the NCAA Tournament, and their head coach turned to a massive dose of copium in the wake of their fifth straight loss.
Ed Cooley spent 11 seasons as the head coach at Providence College, and he posted a 242-153 record with the Friars while helping them punch their ticket to March Madness seven times during his tenure (peaking with a run to the Sweet Sixteen in 2022).
It looked like Georgetown had scored a major win when Cooley was poached to replace Patrick Ewing in the wake of the 2022-23 campaign, but he has not produced the results that were expected since arriving in Washington, D.C.
The Hoyas went 9-23 during his first season in charge, and while they improved to 18-16 last year, Cooley didn’t inspire a ton of confidence and has once again failed to live up to expectations based on how things have been trending since kicking off his third season.
Georgetown got off to a 5-0 start but is currently sitting at 9-9 following a 64-62 loss to #3 UConn. They subsequently dropped to 1-6 in Big East play and are riding a six-game skid against conference opponents, and while there is plenty of cause for concern. Cooley did what he could to minimize those woes with the wild spin he rolled out following that defeat.
Ed Cooley downplayed Georgetown’s underwhelming season by arguing it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things because the world is a dumpster fire
A lot of people rely on sports as an escape that allows them to distract themselves from the heavier aspects of day-to-day life. Plenty of diehards figuratively live and die with their teams, but at the end of the day, losing a game is not a big deal compared to the kinds of losses and struggles countless people around the world have to deal with while trying to survive.
That’s the kind of discussion that’s usually reserved for inebriated fans who decide to get overly philosophical in an attempt to cope following a devastating defeat as opposed to, say, a head coach who arrived at a press conference after suffering one of his own.
However, that was the route Cooley decided to take after his team fell to UConn on Saturday, as he claimed he wasn’t trying to deflect from that result while nonetheless noting “there’s a lot worse happening than Georgetown losing a basketball game; around the world, around our city, around our community.”
Ed Cooley after Georgetown’s loss to UConn:
“There’s a lot worse happening right now than Georgetown losing a basketball game… You know what we are? We’re blessed. We’re blessed to be 9-9, we’re blessed to be 1-6 in the league. It could be a lot worse.”
(🎥: @theDeptofHoops) pic.twitter.com/0PXpU3Tdgo
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 17, 2026
He hammered the point home by saying the Hoyas are actually “blessed” to be sitting at 9-9 and 1-6 in the Big East, and while I can understand where he’s coming from, that’s not the kind of message fans want to hear from a coach who was already under a ton of pressure to produce results heading into a season where he’s failed to do so.
Cooley and Co. will have the chance to rebound when they head to Villanova on Wednesday night.