1987–88 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team

American college basketball season March 2026 August 2023 Basketball 1987–88 Georgetown Hoyas Georgetown Hoyas logo.svg Big East Conference Big East 20–10 9–7 John Thompson 16th Craig Esherick 6th Mike Riley 6th Ronnie Highsmith Perry McDonald Capital Centre NCAA tournament second round The 1987–88 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University in the 1987–88 NCAA Division I college basketball season. John Thompson, coached them in his 16th season as head coach. They played their home games at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. They were members of the Big East Conference and finished the season with a record of 20–10, 9–7 in Big East play. Their record earned them a bye in the first round of the 1988 Big East men's basketball tournament, but they lost to Seton Hall in the quarterfinals. They advanced to the second round of the 1988 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament before losing to Temple. Season recap Sophomore guard Mark Tillmon had shot only 39% from the field the previous season, but he improved to 47% this year and became the second Georgetown player to shoot 40% or better from three-point range since the institution of the three-point shot the previous year. He was the teams top scorer in three non-conference and six Big East games.http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/m_tillmon.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 18. Mark Tillmon 2014-03-15 2014-07-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20140707233830/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/m_tillmon.htm dead Sophomore guard Dwayne Bryant, meanwhile, led the team in assists but otherwise had a difficult season, starting only 16 games, shooting only 37% from the field, and scoring in double figures only twice. He would, however, make a remarkable comeback the next season.http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/d_bryant.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 47. Mark Tillmon 2014-03-15 2014-08-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20140807022837/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/d_bryant.htm dead After spending his freshman and sophomore years as a reserve shooting guard with only modest success, senior and team co-captain Perry McDonald had moved to forward during his junior season and emerged as one of Georgetowns top scoring threats, rebounders, and defenders. When he returned from playing on a gold-medal United States team at the World University Games in the summer of 1987, it seemed to observers that he was poised to be the major driver of Georgetowns 1987-88 offense. However, Thompson chose to emphasize the offensive play of Georgetown guards on this seasons team, and McDonalds playing time fell by 10 percent. Despite this, he led the team in scoring six times and in rebounding 16 times. For the season, he averaged 10.1 points per game despite taking 70 fewer shots than the year before, and he also averaged 6.3 rebounds per game.http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/p_mcdonald.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 30. Perry McDonald 2014-03-15 2014-08-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20140807023144/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/p_mcdonald.htm dead Junior forward Jaren Jackson also had spent his first two years strictly as a reserve. This year, after an 0-for-9 effort from the field against Hawaii Loa in the seasons opening game, he recovered to score in double figures five times during December 1987. He then returned to limited duty as a reserve, starting only six games all season. His breakout game would not come until the very end of the regular season.http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/j_jackson.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 49. Jaren Jackson 2014-03-15 2014-08-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20140807023923/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/features/top100/j_jackson.htm dead Like McDonald and Jackson, guard Charles Smith had spent his first two years as an unheralded reserve, seeing only two starts in his first 63 games, but had suddenly and dramatically emerged at the end of the previous season as a potent offensive force in Georgetowns defeat of Ohio State in the second round of the 1987 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. After touring Australia with a Big East all-star team during the summer of 1987, leading that team in points, assists, and steals, he returned for his junior year with a transformed career, appearing in all 30 games and starting 16 of them, with 75 assists and 71 steals and averaging 15.7 points per game. In the first nine games of the season, he scored in double figures six times. After the Hoyas fell behind at Miami in the tenth game, Smith led the Hoyas in a comeback win in which he shot 8-for-12 from the field and scored 22 points. It began a 34-game streak across two seasons in which he scored in double figures in every Georgetown game for the next year and nine days.The Georgetown Basketball History Project: The Top 100: 12. Charles Smith As January 1988 wore on, Smith scored 20 points at DePaul and 21 at Boston College. On January 24 at Syracuse, Georgetown had come back from a nine-point deficit to take the lead, with Tillmon scoring 19 points and grabbing seven rebounds, when Syracuse guard Sherman Douglas scored a basket with nine seconds left in the game to give the Orangemen a 68-67 lead. Georgetown had no time-outs left and no time to set up a play, so with eight seconds remaining the 6-foot-0 (183-cm) Smith single-handedly took the ball from the backcourt, through the entire Syracuse defense, and to the basket, scoring the winning field goal with a finger roll to give the Hoyas a last-second 69-68 upset victory over the 14th-ranked Orangemen. In February, Smith had a 28-point performance at Seton Hall,http://www.hoyabasketball.com/history/classic.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: Classic Games 2014-03-15 https://web.archive.org/web/20150924041705/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/history/classic.htm 2015-09-24 dead and four days later the Hoyas pulled out another last-second upset win over now-11th-ranked Syracuse, beating the Orangemen 71-69 at the Capital Centre. The Big East had developed a reputation for strong rivalries, physical play, and, increasingly, fighting. On January 6, 1988, Pittsburgh and Georgetown met at the Capital Centre and the 14th-ranked Hoyas upset the No. 2 Panthers. During the game, a fight broke out between Tillmon and Pittsburghs Nate Bailey, a benches-clearing brawl followed, and the teams came away from the incident bearing grudges against each other. On February 20, 1988, the Hoyas again met Pittsburgh, this time at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With four seconds remaining in the game and the Panthers leading 70-65, Perry McDonald and Pittsburghs Jerome Lane became entangled with one another while fighting for a rebound under the basket, and McDonald's elbow struck Lane. Lane responded with a roundhouse right, and McDonald – a two-time Gold Glove boxing champion in Louisiana – retaliated. Fights immediately also broke out between Hoya sophomore center Sam Jefferson and Pittsburgh senior forward Demetreus Gore and between Georgetown junior forward Johnathan Edwards and Panthers senior forward Charles Smith (not to be confused with Georgetowns Charles Smith), and another benches-clearing brawl ensued. Angry Pittsburgh fans came onto the floor, Thompson pulled the Hoyas off the court, and the game did not continue. Postgame, Thompson had to separate the teams when the fight almost resumed in the hallway between the opposing locker rooms. The ugly incident, coming on the heels of the fight at the Capital Centre the previous month, prompted Big East Commissioner Dave Gavitt to convene a committee to recommend measures to reduce fighting and other unsportsmanlike behavior in the conference. Sportswriters and opposing fans accused Georgetown players of being thugs, and Thompson took to the media to defend the team, saying that the fights were not entirely Georgetowns fault.https://vault.si.com/vault/1988/02/29/college-basketball Bishop, Morin, "Basketbrawl," Sports Illustrated, February 29, 1988. March 15, 2014October 2026 medicmedicAssociated Press, "Thompson Says Georgetown Not Solely to Blame For Fights," Gadsden Times, February 22, 1988, p. B3. The Hoyas closed out the regular season with a double-overtime 102-98 win against Seton Hall in which Tillmon scored 35 points and pulled down eight rebounds. Jaren Jackson finally had his breakout game that afternoon; after nearly three seasons of limited play and limited scoring, he shot 12-for-17 (70.6%) from the field and 11-for-12 (91.7%) from the free-throw line to score a career-high 38 points. This final victory in regular-season conference play gave the Hoyas a 9-7 record and third-place finish in Big East play. They received a bye in the first round of the 1988 Big East men's basketball tournament, but they lost their first game of the tournament to Seton Hall in the quarterfinals. The Hoyas were the No. 8 seed in the East Region of the 1988 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament – the 10th of 14 consecutive Georgetown NCAA tournament appearances. In the first round, they faced the No. 9 seed, Louisiana State. Jackson continued his sudden emergence as one of Georgetowns top offensive threats, scoring 20 points. With the game tied 63–63 with three seconds left to play, Charles Smith got the inbounds pass after a Georgetown timeout and, unable to find an open teammate, put up a 30-foot (9.1-meter) shot that scored to give Georgetown a 66–63 last-second win. The win allowed the Hoyas to advance to the second round, in which the East Regions No. 1 seed and eventual champion, No. 1-ranked Temple, defeated them 74–53 in a game in which Jaren Jackson scored 13 points. Jacksons offensive surge in the final games of the year raised his average for the season to 8.7 points per game and changed his career, placing him in a position to excel the following season. By the mid-1908s, brawls like those between Pittsburgh and Georgetown in the winter of 1988 had become an increasing problem in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's basketball games, with few consequences because of a lack of rules governing consequences for fighting. During the 1988 off-season, the NCAA established Rule 19, which mandated a one-game suspension for any player involved in an on-court fight and a season-long suspension for any player fighting a second time during the year. With Rule 19 – later renumbered as Rule 10.7 – in force, brawls have become rare.Imber, Gil, "Xavier, Cincinnati Suspensions Are in Line with Past NCAA Punishments for Fights," Bleacher Report, December 12, 2011. Roster Sourcehttp://www.hoyabasketball.com/players/roster-80s.htm#1988 The Georgetown Basketball History Project: Rosters 1980-81 to 1989-1990 2013-12-01 https://web.archive.org/web/20150330045658/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/players/roster-80s.htm#1988 2015-03-30 dead The Georgetown Basketball History Project: Player Directory: Jersey Numbers #NameHeightWeight (lbs.)PositionClassHometownPrevious Team(s)4Bobby Winston6'5"N/AG/FJr.Washington, DC, U.S.All Saints HS10Perry MacDonald6'4"190FSr.New Orleans, LA, U.S.George Washington Carver Senior HS12Dwayne Bryant6'2"190GSo.New Orleans, LA, U.S.De La Salle HS13Charles Smith6'0"160GJr.Washington, DC, U.S.All Saints HS20Mark Tillmon6'2"190GSo.Washington, DC, U.S.Gonzaga College HS21Jaren Jackson6'2"190FJr.New Orleans, LA, U.S.Walter L. Cohen HS22Johnny Jones6'6"N/AFJr.Coral Springs, FL, U.S.University of the District of Columbia24Anthony Allen6'7"N/AFSo.Port Arthur, TX, U.S.Abraham Lincoln HS40Tom Lang6'0"N/AGSr.Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.Thomas Sprigg Wootton HS41Anthony Tucker6'7"N/AFFr.Washington, DC, U.S.McKinley Technology HS42Johnathan Edwards6'8"N/AFJr.New Orleans, LA, U.S.O. Perry Walker HS44Ronnie Highsmith6'8"N/AFSr.Robersonville, NC, U.S.United States Army50Sam Jefferson7'2"N/AFSo.Washington, DC, U.S.Flint Hill School (Oakton, VA)51Ben Gillery7'0"N/ACSr.Detroit, MI, U.S.Hutchinson Community College (Ks.) Rankings 1987–88 NCAA Division I men's basketball rankings Source1987-88 Big East Conference Season Summarysports-reference.com 1987-88 Polls + Ranking movementLegend: ██ Improvement in ranking. ██ Decrease in ranking. ██ Not ranked the previous week. RV=Others receiving votes. Poll Pre Wk 1 Wk 2 Wk 3 Wk 4 Wk 5 Wk 6 Wk 7 Wk 8 Wk 9 Wk 10 Wk 11 Wk 12 Wk 13 Wk 14 Wk 15 Final AP 16 17 14 18 19 18 14 11 15 15 14 18 Coaches –No Coaches' Poll this week. 12 11 16 15 16 14 11 15 15 13 20 15 25 1987–88 Schedule and results Sourceshttp://www.hoyabasketball.com/records/bb-1980.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: 1980s Seasons December 1, 2013 February 12, 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170212070905/http://hoyabasketball.com/records/bb-1980.htm dead http://www.hoyabasketball.com/opponents.htm The Georgetown Basketball History Project: Records vs. All Opponents 2013-12-01 2013-11-03 https://web.archive.org/web/20131103211101/http://www.hoyabasketball.com/opponents.htm dead 2012-2013 Georgetown Men's Basketball Media Guide, p. 64.Official Basketball Box Score Georgetown vs Syracuse 1/24/88 12 noon at Carrier Dome, Syracuse, NYOfficial Basketball Box Score Syracuse vs Georgetown 2/13/88 2:00 p.m. at Capital Centre, Landover MD All times are Eastern yes |- !colspan=9 style="background:#002147; color:#8D817B;"| Regular Season Fri., Nov. 27, 1987 yes yes 16 Hawaii Loa Kaneohe Armory Kaneohe, HI 92–41 1–0 500 Sat., Nov. 28, 1987 yes yes 16 Hawaii Loa Kaneohe Armory Kaneohe, HI 92–39 2–0 500 Sat., Dec. 5, 1987 yes 16 VMI Capital Centre Landover, MD 81–45 3–0 5,421 Wed., Dec. 9, 1987 yes yes 14 Virginia Tech Hampton Coliseum Hampton, VA 82–87 3–1 7,121 Sat., Dec. 12, 1987 yes 14 Saint Leo Capital Centre Landover, MD 78–40 4–1 N/A Wed., Dec. 16, 1987 yes 18 Maryland-Baltimore County Capital Centre Landover, MD 89–59 5–1 5,088 Sat., Dec. 19, 1987 yes 18 Long Beach State Capital Centre Landover, MD 82–63 6–1 6,717 Mon., Dec. 21, 1987 yes 18 Rice Capital Centre Landover, MD 90–63 7–1 4,477 Wed., Dec. 30, 1987 yes yes 18 Florida International Golden Panther Arena Fort Lauderdale, FL 78–52 8–1 3,087 Sat., Jan. 2, 1988 yes yes 18 Miami (FL) James L. Knight International Center Miami, FL 82–78 9–1 5,023 Wed., Jan. 6, 1988 14 Pittsburgh 2 Capital Centre Landover, MD 62–57 10–1 1–0 13,970 Sun., Jan. 10, 1988 yes yes 14 DePaul Rosemont Horizon Rosemont, IL 74–64 11–1 N/A Wed., Jan. 13, 1988 yes 11 Providence Providence Civic Center Providence, RI 74–78 11–2 1–1 12,696 Sat., Jan. 16, 1988 yes 11 Boston College Silvio O. Conte Forum Chestnut Hill, MA 66–68 11–3 1–2 7,506 Wed., Jan. 20, 1988 15 St. John's Capital Centre Landover, MD 58–65 11–4 1–3 10,503 Sun., Jan. 24, 1988 12:00 noon yes 15 Syracuse 14 Carrier Dome Syracuse, NY Rivalry 69–68 12–4 2–3 32,419 Wed., Jan 27, 1988 15 Boston College Capital Centre Landover, MD 58–36 13–4 3–3 9,373 Sat., Jan. 30, 1988 15 Connecticut Capital Centre Landover, MD Rivalry 60–59 14–4 4–3 10,204 Mon., Feb. 1, 1988 yes 15 Villanova 19 Spectrum Philadelphia, PA 58–64 14–5 4–4 18,059 Sat., Feb. 6, 1988 yes 14 Connecticut Hartford Civic Center Hartford, CT Rivalry 59–66 14-6 4–5 16,016 Tue., Feb. 9, 1988 yes Seton Hall Brendan Byrne Arena East Rutherford, NJ 66–60 15–6 5–5 9,179 Sat., Feb. 13, 1988 2:00 p.m. Syracuse 11 Capital Centre Landover, MD Rivalry 71–69 16–6 6–5 19,025 Mon., Feb. 15, 1988 Villanova 20 Capital Centre Landover, MD 56–54 17–6 7–5 11,816 Sat., Feb. 20, 1988 yes 18 Pittsburgh 8 Civic Arena Pittsburgh, PA 65–70 17–7 7–6 16,721 Wed., Feb 24, 1988 yes St. John's Madison Square Garden New York, NY 66–69 17–8 7–7 17,892 Mon., Feb. 29, 1988 Providence Capital Centre Landover, MD 73–63 18–8 8–7 9,658 Sat., Mar. 5, 1988 Seton Hall Capital Centre Landover, MD 102–98 2OT 19–8 9–7 10,243 |- !colspan=9 style="background:#002147; color:#8D817B;"| Big East tournament Fri., Mar. 11, 1988 yes 3 Seton Hall 6 Madison Square Garden New York, NY Quarterfinals 58–61 19–9 19,591 |- !colspan=9 style="background:#002147; color:#8D817B;"| NCAA Tournament Sat., Mar. 19, 1988 yes 8 E Louisiana State 9 E Hartford Civic Center Hartford, CT First round 66–63 20–9 15,068 Mon., Mar. 21, 1988 yes 8 E Temple 1 1 E Hartford Civic Center Hartford, CT Second round 53–74 20–10 15,068 Notes note References Category:Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball seasons Georgetown Hoyas Georgetown Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team