1927–28 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball | |
---|---|
Conference | Independent |
1927–28 record | 12–1 |
Head coach | Elmer Ripley (1st year) |
Captain | Bob Nork (1st year) |
Home arena | Arcade Rink |
The 1927–28 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University during the 1927-28 NCAA Division I college basketball season. Elmer Ripley coached it in his first season as head coach. Georgetown was an independent and played its home games at the Arcade Rink, also known as the Arcadia and as the Arcade Auditorium, in Washington, D.C., which it had also used for home games from 1911 to 1914.
Ripley played professional basketball, including with the "Original Celtics," from 1908 to 1930, coached for three seasons from 1922 to 1925 at Wagner College with an overall record of 23-22, and was being pursued by George Preston Marshall's Washington Palace Five team of the professional American Basketball League in 1927 when Georgetown hired him as head coach. He immediately showed great talent for coaching, leading the Hoyas to a 12-1 record. During three separate stints as head coach, Ripley would coach Georgetown for a combined ten seasons between 1927 and 1949 and lead the school to its first post-season tournament appearance when it advanced to the final game of the 1943 NCAA Tournament.
On-campus Ryan Gymnasium, where the Hoyas had played their home games from the 1914-15 season through the 1926-27 season, had no seating, accommodating fans on a standing-room only-basis on an indoor track above the court. This precluded the accommodation of significant crowds, providing the self-sustaining Basketball Association with little revenue with which to fund the team's travel expenses and limiting Georgetown to an average of no more than three road games a year from the 1918-19 season through the previous season. Georgetown Athletic Director Lou Little allowed Ripley to schedule home games off campus this season for the first time since the 1913-14 season in order to generate greater revenue to pay for travel expenses; although this season the Hoyas continued the pattern of playing virtually all of their games at home, they would finally begin to travel more regularly again the following season. It was the Arcade Rink's last season hosting Georgetown men's basketball games, but it was only the first of 22 straight seasons of off-campus home games for the Hoyas, who would not have an on-campus home court again until the opening of McDonough Arena for the 1951-52 season.