1938–39 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team

1938–39 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

Eastern Intercollegiate Conference Regular Season Co-Champions
Conference	Eastern Intercollegiate Conference
1938–39 record	13–9 (6-4 EIC)
Head coach	Elmer Ripley (3rd year)
Captain	Joe Murphy (1st year)
Home arena	Tech Gymnasium

	Conf				Overall
1938–39 Eastern Intercollegiate Conference men's basketball standings
Team	W		L	PCT	W		L	PCT
Carnegie Mellon	6	–	4	.600	12	–	7	.632
Georgetown	6	–	4	.600	13	–	9	.591
Penn State	5	–	5	.500	13	–	10	.565
Pittsburgh	5	–	5	.500	10	–	8	.556
West Virginia	4	–	6	.400	10	–	9	.526
Temple	4	–	6	.400	10	–	12	.455

The 1938–39 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University during the 1938-39 NCAA Division I college basketball season. Elmer Ripley, who had coached Georgetown previously from 1927 to 1929, returned for his second of three stints as head coach; it was his third season overall as the Hoyas‍ ' head coach.^[1] The team was a member of the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference (EIC) and played its home games at Tech Gymnasium on the campus of McKinley Technical High School in Washington, D.C.^[2] The team finished with a record of 13-9 overall, 6-4 in the EIC, and had no postseason play.

Season recap

Senior forward Joe Murphy was the team‍ 's star. He scored in double figures in nine games, including 14 points against Syracuse, 11 against Maryland, and 15 against EIC rival Penn State. He finished the season averaging a career-high 8.9 points per game. Over his career, he was the second-highest scoring Georgetown player of the 1930s and fifth-highest in school history at the time. He had scored in double figures in 17 of the 65 games of his three-year college varsity career.^[3]

Junior forward John Schmitt scored 12 points in an upset of West Virginia in an EIC game. His season ended when he broke his leg during the game at Yale.^[4]

Georgetown finished with an overall record of 13-9, the most wins by a Georgetown team since the 1929-30 season and the best winning percentage since 1928-29. The school had been a founding member of the EIC when the conference began play in the 1932-33 season, and this year‍ 's 6-4 conference record gave the school its first and only regular-season EIC championship – Georgetown‍ 's first championship of any kind – which it shared with Carnegie Tech.^[5] Although the EIC never held a postseason conference tournament, in previous seasons when the regular season had ended in a first-place tie it had held a single postseason playoff game between the two first-place teams to determine the conference championship. This season, however, no such playoff game took place, and Georgetown and Carnegie Tech settled for the only co-championship in EIC history.

Although the Associated Press described the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference as "one of the best in the nation,"^[6] its members agreed to disband it at the end of the season because geographical problems had made scheduling difficult.^[6] Georgetown‍ 's overall conference record during its seven-year membership was 27-39.

At the end of the season, Georgetown thus became an independent again for the first time since the 1931-32 season. In 1939-40, the Hoyas would play their first of 38 seasons as an independent before becoming a founding member of the original Big East Conference in the 1979-1980 season.

Roster

Sources^[3]^[7]^[8]

Junior guard Francis "Reds" Daly was killed in action in the Battle of Iwo Jima on February 22, 1945, during World War II military service.^[9]

#	Name	Height	Weight (lbs.)	Position	Class	Hometown	Previous Team(s)
3	Joe Murphy	6'0"	N/A	F	Sr.	West New York, NJ, U.S.	Memorial HS
10	Joe McFadden	N/A	N/A	G	So.	N/A	N/A
12	Jim Giebel	N/A	N/A	G	So.	Bethesda, MD, U.S.	St. John's College HS (Washington, DC)
13	George Pajak	6'0"	N/A	G/F	So.	Ware, MA, U.S.	Ware HS
20	Irv Rizzi	N/A	N/A	G	So.	West New York, NJ, U.S.	Memorial HS
24	Al Matuza	6'2"	N/A	F	So.	Shenandoah, PA, U.S.	Shenandoah HS
53	Ed Kurtyka	N/A	N/A	G	Sr.	Washington, DC, U.S.	Eastern HS
60	Francis "Reds" Daly	6'3"	N/A	G	Jr.	Washington, DC, U.S.	McKinley Technical HS
80	John Schmitt	5'11"	N/A	F	Jr.	Syracuse, NY, U.S.	St. John's Preparatory School (New York, NY)
N/A	Harry Leber	N/A	N/A	G	Sr.	N/A	N/A
N/A	John McGowan	N/A	N/A	C	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	John Riches	N/A	N/A	G	Sr.	N/A	N/A

1938–39 schedule and results

Sources^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]

Date	Opponent	Result	Record	Site
Regular Season
Thu., Dec. 8, 1938*	Western Maryland	W 46–23	1-0	Tech Gymnasium
Tue., Dec. 13, 1938*	Loyola Maryland	W 36–34	2-0	Tech Gymnasium
Thu., Dec. 15, 1938*	at American	W 51–35	3-0	Clendenen Gymnasium
Wed., Jan. 4, 1939*	at New York University	W 27–25	4-0	Madison Square Garden
Mon., Jan. 9, 1938	Temple	W 36–28	5-0 (1-0)	Tech Gymnasium
Fri, Jan. 13, 1939	at Carnegie Tech	L 34–37	5-1 (1-1)	Skibo Gymnasium
Sat., Jan. 14, 1938	at West Virginia	W 37–31	6-1 (2-1)	WVU Field House
Thu., Jan. 19, 1939*	at Loyola Maryland	W 39–30	7-1	Alumni Gymnasium
Fri., Jan. 27, 1939*	at New York University	L 43–45	7-2	102nd Regiment Armory
Sat., Jan. 28, 1939*	at Syracuse	L 43–45	7-3	Archbold Gymnasium
Tue., Jan. 31, 1939*	at Fordham	L 34–43	7-4	Rose Hill Gymnasium
Wed, Feb. 1, 1939*	at Army	L 17–36	7-5	Hayes Gymnasium
Mon., Feb. 6, 1939	West Virginia	W 40–32	8-5 (3-1)	Tech Gymnasium
Wed., Feb. 8, 1939*	at Maryland	W 39–25	9-5	Ritchie Coliseum
Sat., Feb. 11, 1939	at Penn State	W 32–21	10-5 (4-1)	Recreation Hall
Mon., Feb. 13, 1939	at Pittsburgh	L 41–43	10-6 (4-2)	Pitt Pavilion
Thu., Feb. 16, 1939	Carnegie Tech	W 45–41 ^OT	11-6 (5-2)	Tech Gymnasium
Fri., Feb. 24, 1939	at Temple	L 25–32	11-7 (5-3)	Philadelphia Convention Hall
Sat., Feb. 25, 1939*	at Yale	W 20–19	12-7	Payne Whitney Gymnasium
Wed., Mar. 1, 1939	Penn State	W 42–29	13-7 (6-3)	Tech Gymnasium
Sat., Mar. 4, 1939	Pittsburgh	L 39–44	13-8 (6-4)	Tech Gymnasium
Tue., Mar. 7, 1939*	George Washington	L 26–36	13-9	Tech Gymnasium
*Non-conference game. ( ) Tournament seedings in parentheses.

References

Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

Venues	Washington Light Infantry Armory (1906–1907) Convention Hall (1907–1908) Odd Fellows Hall (1908–1911) Arcade Rink (1911–1914, 1927–1928) Ryan Gymnasium (1914–1927) Clendenen Gymnasium (1928–1929) Tech Gymnasium (1929–1940, 1942–1943) Riverside Stadium (1940–1942) Brookland Gymnasium (1945–1946) Uline Arena (1946–1947, 1949–1951) D.C. Armory (1947–1949) McDonough Gymnasium (1951–2009) Capital Centre (1981–1997) Verizon Center (1997–present)

Culture & lore	History Hoya Saxa Jack the Bulldog There Goes Old Georgetown

People	Head coaches NBA draftees

Seasons	1906–07 1907–08 1908–09 1909–10 1910–11 1911–12 1912–13 1913–14 1914–15 1915–16 1916–17 1917–18 1918–19 1919–20 1920–21 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 1927–28 1928–29 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1934–35 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 1939–40 1940–41 1941–42 1942–43 1943–44 1944–45 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1949–50 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 1959–60 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15

NCAA national championships in bold; NCAA Final Four appearances in italics