GW and Georgetown University’s nationally ranked men’s basketball teams could restart a rivalry that ended more than 20 years ago if D.C. City Councilmember Jack Evans can get both schools to agree to participate in an annual Ward 2 championship game.
Earlier this month, Evans sent letters to both GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Georgetown President John J. DeGioia inviting the teams to participate in an annual championship game starting next season. No. 6 GW and No. 23 Georgetown haven’t faced each other in college basketball since the 1981-82 season. Georgetown won that game, 61-48.
Evans told The Hatchet last week that a matchup seemed logical, and since both college campuses are contained within Ward 2 of the District, which Evans represents, it made sense to have a championship game at the MCI Center, another Ward 2 landmark. Georgetown plays its home games at the MCI Center.
“We are going to buy a big giant trophy and present it to the winner,” Evans said. “It would be great for our city.”
As of last Tuesday, Evans said that neither university president had responded to his letter, but said “hopefully they will get back to me.”
Trachtenberg said in an interview last week that he had in fact written back to Evans. In a copy of the letter he provided to The Hatchet, he wrote that “having a GW-GT competition can only prove inspirational for both sides.” He also wrote that he has raised the issue with the past three Georgetown presidents, including DeGioia, but said “Jack (DeGioia) has been non-committal.”
“I think the idea of having a crosstown rivalry is just a good idea. We should commit one of our non-conference games to Georgetown,” Trachtenberg said in an interview, adding, however, that he thinks it is something that has to be “worked out by the athletic directors” of each school.
But both GW Executive Athletic Director Jack Kvancz and Georgetown Sports Information Director Mike “Mex” Carey said there are some issues that have to be resolved before the teams could play each other again. Georgetown Athletic Director Bernard Muir declined to comment on the proposal.
While Kvancz said he would like to play Georgetown, he said “it takes two to tango,” and he thinks that it’s unlikely that the two athletic departments will be able to work out the details of a matchup.
Kvancz said, “We’ve sat down numerous times with them. It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time.”
Kvancz added that some of his concerns with Evans’ proposal are that the game would be played at the MCI Center, which is Georgetown’s home court and would give them a home advantage, and that GW wouldn’t get an equal amount of tickets for the game because of the amount of Georgetown season-ticket-holders. He also said scheduling non-conference games is a complicated process.
“There’s a part of me that says, ‘How much do you want to bend over?'” he said.
He said the best possibility for a matchup would be to play alternating home-away games each year with Georgetown, since there is no neutral arena in the city; but he added, “They’ll never play at the Smith Center” because it’s too small. The Smith Center has a capacity of about 5,000, while the MCI Center can hold 20,000.
Carey, of Georgetown, said that because his team is in the Big East, it is hard to make its out-of-conference schedule.
“It’s not something you can do in the snap of a finger. It’s something we would have to work out,” he said.
Evans said he got the idea for the championship from WTOP political commentator Mark Plotkin, a GW graduate. Plotkin told The Hatchet that he came up with the idea for the championship after confronting Georgetown coach John Thompson III at a caf? downtown about playing GW, and his response was that GW wouldn’t play him.
Plotkin said the rivalry would be beneficial to the city and engaging to both students at Georgetown and GW, as well as Washingtonians.
“It shows a lack of commitment to the idea that this is one city,” Plotkin said. “They set themselves apart and see themselves as an elite school.”
Evans said the championship game could resemble the Big 5, a similar tournament that takes place among Philadelphia-area college basketball teams, except in this case it would just be GW versus Georgetown. Evans added that the proceeds of the game could go to a local charity or a scholarship fund to help D.C. students attend either university.
“I don’t know if it will happen next year,” Evans said. “But I think that the pressure will begin to build on both universities to do this, and so hopefully they will.”
Kvancz, Carey and Trachtenberg said that if the two schools were to work out a matchup it would probably not be for a few years down the line due to all the factors that have to be considered.
The only other way the two D.C. college basketball heavyweights will face each other before then is if they get matched up in the NCAA tournament next month.
