The team ultimately received an at-large invitation as a 6 seed in the 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament,[2] where they lost in the second round to VCU.

Although star center Greg Monroe had opted to forego his senior year of college and enter the 2010 National Basketball Association draft after the end of the previous season and reserve guard Stephan Stepka had transferred to James Madison, the Hoyas returned the rest of the core and reserve players of their 2009–10 team.

In the championship game, the Hoya starters had a balanced attack against the Wolfpack, with Hollis Thompson scoring a game-high 18 points, Wright 17, Freeman 15, and Clark 14.

Sophomore point guard Michael Dixon scored on a layup to take the lead back for Missouri, and the Tigers moved out to an 85–80 advantage with 4:21 to play.

The teams continued to trade baskets until Dixon sank two free throws with 26 seconds left to give Missouri a 93–89 lead.

The Hoyas shot 18-for-18 from the free throw line and hit 15 three-pointers, and their 111 points were the most Missouri had allowed since a 111–56 defeat at the hands of Kansas State on January 3, 1998.

[16][17][18] The Hoyas returned to the Verizon Center for a win over Utah State in which Chris Wright finished with a game-high 21 points and four steals, and Georgetown improved to 8–0 for the second straight season.

9 in the AP Poll, but behind a 30-point performance by junior guard Ramone Moore Temple upset Georgetown to give Owls head coach Fran Dunphy his 400th career victory and end the Hoyas′ winning streak despite 15 points by Jason Clark, 14 each by Austin Freeman and Julian Vaughn, and 10 by Chris Wright.

As two Georgetown students wearing biblical clothing and long false beards held up a "Free Moses" sign, freshman center Moses Ayegba – ruled ineligible for Georgetown's first nine games because he had received an airline ticket to the United States from his native Nigeria from a non-family member – made his collegiate debut in the Appalachian State game, scoring two points.

Against Loyola six days later, Austin Freeman and Hollis Thompson each scored 14 points, Henry Sims contributed 12, and Chris Wright added 11.

9 in the AP Poll when they began their Big East season on December 29 with their second straight road game against a ranked opponent, facing No.

The Hoyas entered the game as the fourth-best three-point-shooting team in the United States, but a strong defensive effort by the underdog Fighting Irish held Georgetown to only 4-for-22 (18.2%) from three-point range and also limited the offensive output of Chris Wright (3 points) and Jason Clark (8 points); Austin Freeman had a 21-point game, but as a team Georgetown shot only 42.6 percent from the field.

A layup and two free throws by Freeman got the Hoyas′ deficit to single digits at 56–47 with 3:53 to play, but Notre Dame then extended its lead again and upset the Hoyas, winning 69–55.

[30][31][32] Returning to Washington to play their first New Year's Day game since 1943, the Hoyas defeated the Big East's weakest team, DePaul, in DePaul's first New Year's Day game since at least 1945 and dealt the Blue Demons their 10th consecutive loss to Georgetown, 15th consecutive loss to a Big East opponent, and 25th consecutive road loss, with Austin Freeman and Jason Clark each scoring 21 points, Chris Wright emerging in the second half from a shooting slump to contribute 17, and Julian Vaughn pulling down 10 rebounds and adding nine points.

13 in the AP Poll after the win over DePaul, the Hoyas lost first at Madison Square Garden to St. John's in the last few seconds of a close game in which Hollis Thompson scored 16 points but Clark, Freeman, and Wright combined for only 20, and then at the Verizon Center to West Virginia, with Clark scoring 16 and Freeman 11 but the Mountaineers making up for poor shooting by dominating in offensive rebounds (15–4) and free throw attempts (24–11) and forcing the Hoyas into 18 turnovers.

22 in the AP Poll and, at 1–3 in conference play, off to its worst start in the Big East since the 2003–04 season – Craig Esherick′s last as head coach – Georgetown next hosted No.

Freeman and Wright got in early foul trouble, and Pittsburgh jumped out to a 19–9 advantage with 10:54 remaining in the first half and led by double digits for the rest of the game.

[39][43][44][45][46][47] Georgetown entered the Seton Hall game with the third-highest team field-goal percentage in the United States, at 50.7 percent.

11 in the AP Poll and ranked second in the United States in team field goal percentage at 50.5 percent when it went on the road for a game at No.

Syracuse clung to its lead until 3:50 was left, when Hollis Thompson sank a three-pointer to tie the game at 55–55 and begin what turned out to be a decisive 9–0 Georgetown run that put the Hoyas ahead 61–55 with 2:08 remaining.

It was John Thompson III's first win at the Carrier Dome in six tries, and the Orange's third straight home less, only the third time that had happened in Jim Boeheim′s 35-year tenure as Syracuse's head coach.

Chris Wright led the Hoyas with 19 points, while Jason Clark had 13 and Austin Freeman 12, and Hollis Thompson came off the bench to score 10.

Although Austin Freeman scored 19 points, the Hoyas shot 25 percent from the field as a team, their worst shooting performance since at least the 1996–97 season.

Georgetown battled back in the second half to take a 45–43 lead with 10:00 left to play, but from there Syracuse outscored the Hoyas 15–6 for a 58–51 upset win.

17 in the AP Poll, the season ended with a loss at Cincinnati, in which Freeman alone provided most of Georgetown's offense, playing 37 minutes and scoring 21 points.

Like Georgetown, the Huskies had struggled late in the regular season, losing four of their final five games, but they had defeated 16th-seed DePaul the previous day in the first round of the tournament to advance to face the Hoyas.

VCU led 35–24 at halftime, and in the second half continued to extend their lead, beginning with a 14–4 run that put them ahead 49–28 with about 15 minutes left to play.

On May 19, 2011, sophomore guard Vee Sanford announced that he was transferring to Dayton, where, after fulfilling a requirement to sit out the 2011–12 season, he could begin play with the Flyers in 2012–13 with two years of college eligibility remaining.

Hollis Thompson initially declared for the 2011 NBA draft, indicating that he planned to forego his final two years of college eligibility, but he never hired an agent and instead returned to school to play for Georgetown the following season.

It continued a troubling pattern established since their Final Four appearance in 2007 of early upsets in the NCAA tournament at the hands of decided underdogs.