Georgetown Basketball

Former Georgetown guard D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera (C'16) announced his retirement from professional basketball via Instagram Monday, citing health issues.

Smith-Rivera ended his Georgetown career ranked fifth all time in scoring but was not drafted by the NBA. He played briefly in the NBA developmental league and spend much of last season in Greece.

Following his announcement to transfer on May 2, former Georgetown forward Akoy Agau is transferring to Southern Methodist, reports the Omaha World-Herald.

"I chose SMU because I felt like it was the best situation for me to succeed both athletically and academically," Agau said. "SMU has been one of the winningest programs in the country the last few years. Winning is very important to me."

Georgetown previously listed Agau as a rising senior before the transfer but is now listed in the media as a graduate transfer, having completed his Georgetown degree this spring. As such, he would be eligible immediately for SMU.

In other Georgetown sports news, the University has named Julie Culley as its director of track and field, the first woman to hold to post in the 126 year history of the sport on the Hilltop.

"I'm very excited to have Julie in the role of director of our track & field program," said athletic director Lee Reed in a news release. "She has demonstrated an ability to mentor our athletes to success both on and off the track. Her experience, knowledge and maturity will maintain Georgetown's presence among the elite track programs in the country."

The return of Seton Hall's center Angel Delgado from the NBA draft pool has Pirate fans excited about 2017-18, where veteran Big East writer Jerry Carino names them second in his summer Big East picks from the Asbury Park Press.

"If Khadeen Carrington makes a smooth transition to point guard (no easy task), this is a Sweet 16 team," Carino writes.

Carino is less effusive on Georgetown, picking the Hoyas near the bottom of the conference.

"The Patrick Ewing experiment should be fascinating, but year one will not be pretty," Carino writes. "Between his inexperience, the roster turnover and how badly last season train-wrecked, the Hoyas are in DePaul's sights."

As suggested earlier this month, Georgetown will not be playing in the 16 team Big East-Big Ten challenge series (aka Gavitt Games) in 2017-18.

"Hasn't been announced yet but I'm told Maryland and Georgetown won't be playing one another next year," said columnist John Feinstein on his Twitter account in early May. This past weekend, the series matchups were announced, with Maryland hosting Butler on Nov. 15. Georgetown and Villanova are the two Big East schools not in the rotation this year.

While Georgetown and Maryland could certainly schedule a series outside the Gavitt Games format, neither seems ready to do so.

Fifth year recruit Trey Dickerson is looking forward to his arrival to Georgetown this summer in an interview at SB Nation's Casual Hoya.

"I started at Iowa, which is a high-major level," he said. Then I went to South Dakota. My juco coach got a job here as an assistant and I just felt like it was the best fit at the time.

"Coach Ewing told me we have to play real up-tempo. He wants to play full- out, man-to-man and have a lot of ball screens on offense. That pretty much is where I have an advantage. He basically said he's trying to get back to the old style of play where they used to run a lot, get back to that mode...I didn't know he went to three straight Final Fours with the Hoyas and won the national championship. He's somebody who has gone through what you want to go through."

The Georgetown results among all sports are below (note that men's rowing and sailing are not included in that they are not recognized NCAA sports.) Twelve teams scored a perfect 1000 on the rating.

Chris Yannick Sodom, a 7-3 center from Houston, TX originally committed to the University of New Mexico, announced a verbal commitment for the Georgetown class of 2017 on Sunday.

A native of Nigeria, Sodom played at St. Thomas HS in Houston as a junior before moving to Memphis to attend Tennessee Prep Academy, and is ranked as the #26 center prospect by ESPN.com and #261 overall by 247Sports.com. With just 215 pounds on a 7-3 frame, he is considered a project player for 2017-18.

Sodom was one of three New Mexico recruits released from their obligations on April 17 following a change in coaching.

In need of filling at least four open spots on the 2017-18 varsity, basketball head coach Patrick Ewing secured a commitment from 6-0 guard Trey Dickerson, a rising senior at the University of South Dakota, according to reports. What is unclear, however, is when he will be eligible to play next season.

Dickerson averaged 10.4 points per game for the Coyotes in 2016-17, the third leading scorer on a USD team that finished 22-12 and advanced to the school's first NIT bid. On April 11, he announced his interest in a fifth year transfer. Pending graduation from USD, Georgetown would be the fifth college for the 23 year old guard and the eighth stop in the past nine seasons.

Originally from New York, Dickerson played freshman basketball at Christ the King Academy in Queens Village, NY but struggled academically according to reports, moving to Los Angeles in the 2009-10 season to play for Montclair Prep of Van Nuys but the school closed in 2011. He moved on to Price Christian School in Los Angeles, averaging 14.8 ppg in 2011-12, but then moved on to God's Academy, a basketball-only prep school headquartered in a south Dallas recreation center. (This school is not related to the "God's Academy" of nearby Grand Prairie, TX that was labeled a diploma mill by the NCAA in 2007.)

"Dickerson is extremely fast with the ball, and he is even more dangerous in transition," wrote Future150.com in a 2013 review of the two-star rated guard. "His ball-handling is his biggest attribute, but...he needs to work on playing under control and limiting the turnovers."

At God's Academy, Dickerson averaged 23 points per game and qualified for a NCAA Division I scholarship. He committed to Murray State in the summer of 2013, choosing the Racers over offers from the University of Seattle and Oakland University. This proved to be a brief stop, as he decommitted at the close of the summer term and moved to Williston State, a North Dakota junior college. Dickerson earned third team junior college All-America honors with Williston, averaging 19 points and five assists for the Tetons.

In 2014-15 he transferred to Iowa, choosing the Hawkeyes over interest from Nebraska, Arkansas, and Washington State, but saw limited action, averaging less than three points per game.

"Dickerson played considerable minutes in Iowa's first two games of the season, but...by conference season, he was only seeing action during garbage time," wrote SB Nation. "In the 17 games since Iowa faced Iowa State and the schedule got serious, Dickerson has played exactly 32 minutes, with less than half of those in games that were decided by less than 25 points."

After one season, he announced a transfer to South Dakota. And one year later, he is back on the move.

"If you want to be a graduate transfer, they make you earn it," Dickerson told the Argus (ND) Leader. "If you don't graduate, you have to sit out, but if you do it by the rules, you've earned the right to take advantage of the opportunity."

If Dickerson does not graduate from South Dakota as scheduled, his eligibility will expire. According to NCAA rules, a player has five years to complete four years of eligibility, excepting medical hardship. Dickerson's college career began in the fall of 2013 at Murray State and will this conclude in 2017-18.

Columnist and provocateur John Feinstein suggests Georgetown and Maryland will not be playing in 2017-18. And this time, he may be correct.

"Hasn't been announced yet but I'm told Maryland and Georgetown won't be playing one another next year," said Feinstein on his Twitter account. "What a shame. Games last 2 years were great. They should play every year. Sure, Maryland has upper hand right now but these things ebb and flow. FYI, this decision was made before JT III got fired and Ewing got the job."

The Hoyas and Terrapins have played in each of the past two seasons as part of the Big East-Big 10 challenge series known as the Gavitt Games, but the series was not meant to be a static scheduling item. Given Georgetown's rebuilding mode and a likely pre-season pick in the bottom two of the conference, a break from the Gavitt games would not be unforeseen. In fact, the original plan for the eight year series would have each of the ten Big East schools playing over six of the eight years, as two schools each year are not part of the series. (Last year's non-entrants were Marquette and Xavier.)

"Clearly, Feinstein's info is coming from the Hoyas' end of things; Maryland sources said they were unaware of such a decision and it seems new Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing has yet to hire a staffer to handle scheduling," writes Inside Maryland Sports. A separate, also unconfirmed report suggests that other than the Phil Knight Invitational and the Dec. 16 game with Syracuse, Ewing has not filled any of the nine remaining open non-conference games to date.

Junior forward Akoy Agau has joined a recent list of departures from the men's basketball program, as the Omaha World Herald reports he will seek a transfer at the conclusion of the spring semester this month.

Agau, a native of the Sudan via Omaha, was the 75th ranked player in the nation when he enrolled at Louisville in 2013, but played sparingly in three semesters and transferred after the fall 2014 semester. He sat out the 2015-16 season at Georgetown due to injury but averaged 4.6 points and 4.5 points per game for Georgetown as a redshirt junior, starting in eight games last season.

Agau will be the fourth unplanned departure from the Hoyas since last summer, a list that also includes Paul White (to Oregon), Isaac Copeland (to Nebraska), and L.J. Peak to the professional ranks.