1951–52 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team
| 1951–52 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Conference | Independent |
| 1951–52 record | 15–10 |
| Head coach | Francis "Buddy" O'Grady (3rd year) |
| Assistant coach | Dominic Cara (2nd year) |
| Captain | Mike Vitale (1st year) |
| Home arena | McDonough Gymnasium |
The 1951–52 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University during the 1951-52 NCAA Division I college basketball season. Francis "Buddy" O'Grady coached it in his third and final season as head coach. The team was an independent and played its home games at McDonough Gymnasium on the Georgetown campus in Washington, D.C. It finished the season with a record of 15-10 and had no postseason play.
The 1951-52 team was the first to play its home games at McDonough Gymnasium, marking the first time the Georgetown men's basketball team played on campus since the 1926-27 team used Ryan Gymnasium as its home court. It played its first game at McDonough on December 7, 1951 – the day before a ribbon-cutting ceremony officially opened the new gymnasium – against Fordham. Although the Hoyas lost the game, the 1951-52 team went on to post an 11-1 home record during McDonough's inaugural season – the first of 29 winning home records during the 30 seasons Georgetown played its home games there.
Junior center Bill Bolger had a standout year. Playing in all 25 games, he scored in double figures 20 times, including 25 against Dayton and 29 against Wake Forest. His late-season 38 points against Mount St. Mary's on February 27, 1952, set a new Georgetown single-game scoring record. He scored 435 points during the year – also a school record – and his 17.4 points per game was the highest average by a Georgetown player in 34 years.
Junior guard Barry Sullivan was the team's point guard and other big scoring threat, and he and Bolger averaged a combined 32 points per game. Playing in 22 games, Sullivan himself led the team in scoring in ten of them, with a 26-point game against Princeton and 25 each against Pittsburgh and George Washington. He recovered from late-season injuries to average 21 points per game in the last two games of the season, and he made the winning basket in Georgetown's 72-70 defeat of George Washington in the final game of the year. Sullivan left school at the end of the year for two years of United States Army service in Korea during the Korean War and did not return to Georgetown, instead later completing his undergraduate studies at Columbia.
...
Wikipedia