The 1938–39 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

during the 1938–39 NCAA

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

season.

Elmer Ripley Elmer H. Ripley (July 21, 1891 – April 29, 1982) was an American basketball coach. He coached college basketball at seven different schools and for several professional teams. Early life Ripley was born in Staten Island, New York on July 21, ...

, 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. The team was a member of the

Eastern Intercollegiate Conference The Eastern Intercollegiate Conference (EIC) was an athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States. The conference sponsored men's college basketball and existed from 1932 to 1939, with teams in the Dist ...

(EIC) and played its home games at Tech Gymnasium on the campus of McKinley Technical High School in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

The Georgetown Basketball History Project: Home Courts
/ref> The team finished as conference co-champion, with a record of 6-4 in the EIC and 13-9 overall. It had no postseason play.

Season recap

Senior

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Joe Murphy was the teams star. He scored in double figures in nine games, including 14 points against Syracuse, 11 against

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, and 15 against EIC rival

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

. 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.The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 92. Joe Murphy
/ref> Junior forward John Schmitt scored 12 points in an upset of

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in an EIC game. His season ended when he broke his leg during the game at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

. 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 years 6-4 conference record gave the school its first and only regular-season EIC championship – Georgetowns first championship of any kind – which it shared with

Carnegie Tech Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. 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

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described the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference as "one of the best in the nation,"College Hoopedia: 1938-39
/ref> its members agreed to disband it at the end of the season because geographical problems had made scheduling difficult. Georgetowns 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 The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

in the 1979-1980 season.

Roster

Sources Junior

guard Guard or guards may refer to: Professional occupations * Bodyguard, who protects an individual from personal assault * Crossing guard, who stops traffic so pedestrians can cross the street * Lifeguard, who rescues people from drowning * Prison ...

Francis "Reds" Daly was killed in action in the Battle of Iwo Jima on February 22, 1945, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

military service.

1938–39 schedule and results

SourcesThe Georgetown Basketball History Project: 1930s Seasons
/ref>2012-2013 Georgetown Men's Basketball Media Guide, p. 59.
/ref> , - !colspan=9 style="background:#002147; color:#8D817B;", Regular Season

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1938-39 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball seasons

Georgetown Hoyas The Georgetown Hoyas are the collegiate athletics teams that officially represent Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown's athletics department fields 23 men's and women's varsity level teams and competes at the National C ...

Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team