MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Maryland and Georgetown will finally play each other again. In basketball. Men’s basketball.
The schools announced Tuesday in separate (naturally) news releases that they had committed to a four-game series that will alternate each season between Xfinity Center and Capital One Arena. Maryland will host during the 2025-26 and 2027-28 seasons, and Georgetown will do so in 2026-27 and 2028-29.
It’s about time. Talk about kitty having claws … Thank goodness Maryland head coach Kevin Willard and Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley are long-time friends and have been working on this gig for over a year now. Certainly, it wasn’t made easy for them by at least one of the school’s administrations.
The last meeting between Maryland and Georgetown – separated by about 10 miles and 15 minutes – was in 2016 when Maryland won by one point, led by Melo Trimble and Kevin Huerter, giving the Terps a 38-27 all-time series lead.
Prior to that, the teams played most years from 1935 to 1980, but then stopped playing each other because Hall of Fame coaches, the late John Thompson Jr. of Georgetown and the late Lefty Driesell of Maryland could not work and play well with each other.
Actually, it was Thompson and Georgetown.
In their mostly-annual game in 1979, played at the D.C. Armory, emotions spilled over between Thompson and Driesell, with Thompson screaming a profanity at the Lefthander. After the Hoyas won the nailbiter, Driesell refused to shake hands with Thompson.
Naturally, the teams met again that season in a Sweet 16 game at the Philadelphia Spectrum. I remember it well because I had a party at my mother’s house (she was in New York and didn’t know about it, although Coach Charlie Lattimer somehow did and happened to stop by, which, given the invitation list, ended up being a good thing).
Aside from that, what I remember is Georgetown won a couple of days after a press conference during which Thompson apologized for what he had said to Lefty. And naturally, Lefty accepted the apology by saying, “Everyone knows to err is human, to forgive divine, and I’m divine.”
Thompson and Lefty actually liked and respected each other very much, but Thompson held a grudge, real or perceived, and when the Hoyas started beating everyone in the country (literally) and won a national championship, he stopped playing all of the area teams, including George Washington, Georgetown’s main rival from the beginning.
That changed for some reason, when Thompson agreed to play the Terps in 1993 in the old Capital Centre (old? I can remember when it was built), and Maryland turned in an exhilarating overtime upset that set sail to Gary Williams’ career in College Park, led by Duane Simpkins, Keith Booth and Joe Smith. Because of that win, Maryland basketball was back.
In truth, the big-time schools hate playing local schools that are not in their conferences because it’s a lose-lose situation. So once Georgetown became King of the Hill under Thompson, they weren’t eager to play Maryland and the other local schools, because if you lose those games, you live with it all year no matter who else you beat.
But the truth is, neither school, particularly when both men’s basketball teams were national players, had anything to lose by playing each other, because both of them were just that good.
Maryland and Georgetown should play each other every year.
But Maryland, the designated home team in 1993, won the game and Thompson refused to play the second of what had been agreed upon to be a two-game series, because he said Maryland didn’t give Georgetown enough tickets for the game at the Cap Centre, then Georgetown’s home arena.
That is what was known nationwide, thanks to the great John Feinstein, as Hoya Paranoia.
Thankfully, the current head coaches are good friends, not that Big John and the Divine Lefthander were not, as Thompson fought tooth and nail, and used every bit of his influence, which was plentiful, to finally get Lefty into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
In a weird way, maybe it’s a good thing both teams are coming off bad seasons, because, otherwise, one of them might not have been as willing to resume this series, which the entirety of the DMV has wanted to see each and every year for as long as we can remember.
Perhaps the best thing, though, is both programs appear to be on the upswing based on how Willard and Cooley have been recruiting over the past offseason.
So beginning next year, it will be here, and it is going to be good.
Thank you, Terps. Thank you, Hoyas.
What do you say you both keep it good, as it once was and should always be again, and again and again and again.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @MikeBurkeMDT