Georgetown Hoyas
The University admits that the precise origin of the term "Hoya" is unknown. At some point before 1893, and likely before 1891, students versed in classical languages combined the Greek "hoia" or "hoya", meaning "what" or "such", and the Latin "saxa" to form "Hoya Saxa!", or "What Rocks!" This cheer may either refer to the stalwart defense of the football team, or to the baseball team, which was nicknamed the "Stonewalls", or to the actual stone wall that surrounds the campus. Father William McFadden, S.J., campus Jesuit and the team's in-house announcer at the Capital One Arena, has disputed the Greek and Latin origin, suggesting the classical words were retroactively applied to a nonsensical cheer.
After World War I, the term "Hoya" was increasingly used on campus, including for the newspaper and the school mascot. In 1920, students began publishing the campus's first sports newspaper under the name "The Hoya", after successfully petitioning the Dean of the College to use it instead of the proposed name, "The Hilltopper". "Hilltoppers" was also a name sometimes used for the sports teams. By the fall of 1928, the newspaper had taken to referring to the sports teams as the Hoyas. This was influenced by a popular half time show at football games, where the mascot, a dog nicknamed "Hoya," would entertain fans.
2013–14 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team
Georgetown completed its regular season with games against two ranked conference opponents. The penultimate game was against No. 13 Creighton, with four Georgetown seniors playing in their final home game. During halftime Georgetown announced that its new on-campus athletic center would be named the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center, after John Thompson, Jr., the Hoyas′ head coach from 1972 to 1999 and father of John Thompson III and of former Georgetown player Ronny Thompson. The Hoyas shot 54 percent from the field and Aaron Bowen and Mikael Hopkins limited the highest-scoring college player in the United States, Bluejays senior forward Doug McDermott – averaging 26 points per game for the season – to 9-for-23 shooting (39 percent) in field goal attempts and 4-of-11 (36 percent) from three-point range, and overall Creighton shot only 40 percent from the field and 10-for-29 (34 percent) in three-point attempts. The Hoyas jumped out to a 42–28 advantage at halftime. and early in the second half widened their lead to 16. Although McDermott scored 16 of his 22 points and made nine of his 12 rebounds – giving him a double double – in the second half, the Bluejays never got closer than five points, closing to 66–61 with 1:42 left to play. After that, Georgetown pulled away again for a 75–63 upset victory. D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera and Markel Starks had Georgetown's first double-doubles of the season, Smith-Rivera scoring 18 points and grabbing a career-high 12 rebounds and Starks finishing with 17 points and a career-best 11 assists, while Jabril Trawick had 15 points and seven rebounds and Mikael Hopkins contributed 10 points.