Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson III out after 13 seasons

WASHINGTON -- The Georgetown Hoyas have fired head basketball coach John Thompson III, school president Jack DeGioia confirmed.

“It is with profound regret and deep appreciation that I informed John Thompson III this morning that the University will no longer be retaining his services as our Head Men’s Basketball Coach,” DeGioia said in a statement Thursday afternoon, CBS DC reports.

Thompson had a 278-151 (.648) record at Georgetown, but his Hoyas had endured back-to-back losing seasons that led to a combined two-year record of 19-36. Georgetown has made the NCAA Tournament just once in its past four seasons, when it lost in the Round of 32 to fifth-seeded Utah.

In his 13 seasons with the Hoyas, they finished as the No. 8 team in the country three times, but they never finished higher than that, and they haven’t been ranked in the AP Preseason Poll since the 2010-11 season, before Otto Porter came to Georgetown.

Thompson’s 2017 recruiting class featured just two notable players, guard Tremont Waters and forward Antwan Walker, and ESPN had it ranked as the nation’s 38th best recruiting class. That is, until four-star recruit Waters requested a release from his letter of intent after the season ended. Georgetown’s 2016 class wasn’t among ESPN’s top 40, a sharp fall for a once-great basketball program.

Thompson is the son of John Thompson Jr., the legendary Hoyas coach who compiled a 596-239 record from 1972 to 1998.