1980–81 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team
The 1980–81 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University in the 1980–81 NCAA season. Coached by John Thompson in his ninth year, the Hoyas played in the Big East and finished 20–12 overall, 9–5 in conference play. They played their home games at McDonough Gymnasium in Washington, D.C., the last season there before moving to the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, the next year.
Georgetown reached the semifinals of the Big East tournament before losing to Syracuse. In the NCAA tournament, they were the No. 7 seed in the East and were upset in the first round by James Madison. During the James Madison game, Sleepy Floyd surpassed Derrick Jackson to become Georgetown’s all-time leading scorer, finishing the season with strong shooting and about 19 points per game.
Key players included Sleepy Floyd (captain and team top scorer for three straight seasons), Eric Smith (captain, started every game, strong defender, 10.8 ppg), and freshmen Fred Brown (guard/forward, started all 32 games, led in field goal percentage and assists) and Gene Smith (defensive specialist). Junior center Mike Hancock averaged 8.7 ppg, while senior center Mike Frazier had a memorable late-game block against Connecticut to preserve a 60–58 win. Notably, on February 2, 1981, Patrick Ewing—then a high school senior from Cambridge, Massachusetts—committed to Georgetown for the following season, a signing that helped raise the program’s profile. Ewing would later become Georgetown’s head coach in 2017 following a long NBA career.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:47 (CET).