There was a mini-shockwave rippling through Orange Nation on Wednesday with the news that Syracuse and Georgetown would not be meeting in men’s basketball during the 2025-26 season. Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports was the first to report that the Syracuse-Georgetown matchup was unlikely to be on the schedule. While it’s just one year, it opens the door to the Syracuse-Georgetown series being discontinued on a more permanent basis, putting the rivalry on an indefinite hiatus.
Sources: Georgetown and Syracuse are not expected to play during the 2025-26 college basketball season.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 28, 2025
After failing to put the Hoyas on the schedule for two seasons when Syracuse first joined the ACC, the Orange has played Georgetown for 10 straight seasons. Syracuse has made it a point to keep arguably the best rivalry in Big East history alive. But maybe the timing is right for the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry to fade into the background.
Syracuse-Georgetown history is undeniable
As a fan, it’s been great to see the Orange and Hoyas continue to play each other every year. Personally, I made it a point to attend last season’s Syracuse-Georgetown matchup, which was the 100th game between the two schools. That game also marked 30 years since the first Syracuse-Georgetown game I attended in 1995. But perhaps the 100th game between Syracuse and Georgetown might be a good place to hit pause.
Right now, Syracuse and Georgetown don’t have a rivalry; they have a history. Those two aren’t necessarily the same thing. The history between the two programs, which has been as bitter and contentious at times as any other college basketball rivalry, has been enough to keep fans interested a little more than other December non-conference games. But the game has lacked the feel of an intense rivalry.
The rivalry just isn't the same
The fact is that Syracuse and Georgetown haven’t played in the same conference for their last 10 meetings. Obviously, they aren’t close geographic rivals either, even if Syracuse continues to recruit the Washington, D.C. area and compete for players with the Hoyas. Without sharing a conference or geography, it’s not easy to maintain a proper rivalry.
It doesn’t help that both programs have fallen off a cliff over the past decade. Syracuse has gone four years without a postseason birth, with just four NCAA Tournament appearances in the last 10 years. Likewise, the Hoyas went to the NCAA Tournament seven times in the last eight years before the Big East broke up, only to reach the Big Dance twice in the last 12 seasons. In fact, Georgetown has just one winning season in the last six years, while the Orange has uncharacteristically had two losing campaigns in the last four seasons.
In other words, the luster has been lost from the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry. The stakes are lower because they don’t play in the same conference. The players don’t inherently dislike each other because they aren’t geographic rivals. In fact, the players don’t have a chance to dislike each other because every college basketball roster undergoes significant turnover every season.
If both programs could have remained national powerhouses and perennial top-25 teams over the past decade, things might look different right now. But with both programs fading in recent years, it’s hard to deny that the rivalry has as well. Given the state of things, there is no reason for Syracuse or Georgetown to go out of their way to keep the series going.
A future for Syracuse vs. Georgetown
Nobody can ever take away the history that Syracuse and Georgetown share. In its heyday, this was undoubtedly one of the pre-eminent rivalries in college basketball. It’s hard to think of more than a handful of other rivalries that at any point featured the type of contempt the Orange and Hoyas once had for each other. Unfortunately, it’s never going to be like that again, and there’s no sense pretending that Syracuse and Georgetown are still bitter rivals just because they still play once a year. That’s why right now, with 100 games played in the series, is the right time for the Orange and Hoyas to take a break from each other.
That’s not to say this has to be the end of Syracuse and Georgetown. If the two were to cross paths in the NCAA Tournament or a preseason tournament, it would surely be a special occasion. Perhaps both will return to national prominence one day and decide to meet for a neutral-court game at Madison Square Garden for old time’s sake. But there has to be a good reason to play a Syracuse-Georgetown game beyond just trying to keep the rivalry alive. True rivalries don’t need to be forced; they just happen naturally. That’s no longer the case with the Orange and the Hoyas, which is why the timing might be right to push pause on this rivalry.