The 1939–40 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 1939–40 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, ...

coached it in his fourth of ten seasons as head coach; it was also the second season of his second of three stints at the helm. The team played its home games at Tech Gymnasium on the campus of

McKinley Technical High School McKinley Technology High School is a public citywide 9th–12th grade high school in the District of Columbia Public Schools in Northeast Washington, D.C. The school, an offshoot of Central High School (now Cardozo Senior High School), originall ...

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 with a record of 8-10 and had no postseason play.

Season recap

Following the demise 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 ...

after the end of the previous season, Georgetown returned to an independent status. Beginning this season – its first as an independent since 1931-32 – it would play 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 ...

in the 1979-1980 season. The 1939–40 Hoyas were a young team, with only two seniors on the roster. New to the team was sophomore guard Buddy O'Grady. He averaged 4.9 points per game for the season and became a leader on the court, and would be a star for the Hoyas for three seasons. The team became a part of television broadcasting history on February 28, 1940, when

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

W2XBS WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo station WN ...

broadcast a men's basketball doubleheader from

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsyl ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Fordham and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

played in the first game, and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

played Georgetown in the second game. It was the first time in history that

was televised. The 1939–40 Hoyas had a difficult season, finishing with an 8-10 record and no post-season play. Senior forward

Al Lujack Aloysius Richard Lujack (October 5, 1920 – December 26, 2002) was an American professional basketball player. He spent one season in the Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketba ...

went on to play professionally for one season with the

Washington Capitals The Washington Capitals (colloquially known as the Caps) are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, a ...

of the

Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA absorbed most of National Basketball League (NBL) and rebranded as the National Ba ...

Roster

Sources Sophomore guard Buddy O'Grady would later serve as the Hoyas' head coach from

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – ...

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh ...

. Sophomore guard Don Martin served as head coach at

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifi ...

from 1953 to 1962. Senior guard Francis "Reds" Daly was killed in action in the

Battle of Iwo Jima The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army ( ...

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

military service.

1939–40 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:1939-40 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball seasons Georgetown Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team