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It’s the age old question among local college basketball fans.
What’s the better job: Georgetown or Maryland?
The Sports Junkies weighed in on Thursday morning in the final hours of their popular morning show on 106.7 The Fan after Rick Pitino tweeted that he wasn’t interested in the College Park opening. This came just a day after two of the hosts - Jason Bishop and Eric Bickel - said that Pitino was the top choice of some of the bigger Maryland donors.
The University of Maryland is one of the premier institutions of higher learning. It's basketball program can be among the nation’s best. I hope they find the next great Gary Williams. I love coaching at Iona, and I’m totally committed to my players. It will not be me.
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) March 3, 2022
Bickel is a Maryland graduate along with fellow Junk J.P. Flaim. John Auville rounds out the foursome and they are all Maryland natives. Are you noticing a theme here?
So knowing all this you may think they would lean with the Big Ten program but things took a turn as the conversation shifted to Georgetown.
Here’s what Bickel had to say:
“We have it on good authority that a name that you would think would be an obvious choice for Maryland doesn’t even want Maryland at this point. That person would rather...is waiting for Ewing to get fired at Georgetown,” Bickel said.
“Then you think, well why is that? Because at Georgetown - probably - you’re going to get a lot more support. Georgetown basketball is No. 1.”
As we said on the show we know of one prominent coach not interested in the MD job. He's "waiting for Ewing to be fired". One big factor....Hoops is the Number 1 priority there.
— Eric Bickel (@EBJunkies) March 3, 2022
And then a little later:
More from Bickel: “Remember they [Maryland basketball] get no money, they get no support financially. We have that on good authority. They get no money. They are second fiddle. Under Armor is an impediment to the basketball team. Is Georgetown still a Nike school? It’s a better basketball gig probably.”
Jason Bishop added: “I think Georgetown is a good job. I know it doesn’t look like it when you are 0-18 in the conference.”
When people think about the MD hoops job remember Gary made that place special despite all the drama and lack of support behind the scenes. Believe it or not all their resources go into football. Hoops gets very very little support relatively speaking.
— Eric Bickel (@EBJunkies) March 3, 2022
The conversation continued and you can listen to all of it by clicking here.
Now look, one of the best ways to get an answer to the question of local college hoops supremacy would be if both programs were searching for a head coach at the same time.
This has never happened and we still aren’t there. Yet.
While Terps coach Mark Turgeon stepped down eight games into this season leaving Danny Manning as the interim coach in a lost campaign, Patrick Ewing is still the man in charge of the Hoyas as the one of the worst seasons in program history nears an end. Georgetown AD Lee Reed’s recent vote of confidence did little to stop the speculation that the Hoyas job may open up one way or another in a few weeks.
In keeping with the Sports Junkies theme - they had author and Washington Post columnist John Feinstein on this morning in his weekly spot - and he claims to have heard that Ewing will announce his retirement soon - either before or after the Big East Tournament.
You can listen to that segment here.
So what’s the better job? This offseason may give us a look at the best answer to date.