J

ake Carraway has too much time on his hands.

Like many college lacrosse players sent home due to the COVID-19 crisis, the hours he spent every day practicing, lifting and meeting with his Georgetown teammates now are consumed by busywork at home.

He’s finishing the requirements of his finance degree independently, connecting with his teammates via GroupMe, FaceTime and Zoom, sneaking in a few quick scopes on “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” and training on the lacrosse field and wall that’s about a 30-second walk from the front door of his family’s Sherwood Forest cottage on the Severn River near Annapolis, Md.

After watching the HBO miniseries, “The Pacific,” Carraway decided to start reading the biography of Sgt. John Basilone, a World War II hero and legend of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The title of the book, “I’m Staying with My Boys,” also could serve as the answer to the question Carraway knows is coming next.

“I don’t have a decision yet, but I would love to be in a Hoyas uniform next year,” said Carraway, the senior attackman and captain who led the team to a 6-0 start and No. 9 ranking before the season ended abruptly March 12. “I was ecstatic about the team we had and the path we were on.”

The two-time defending Big East champion, Georgetown wasn’t generating the same kind of buzz as the other four unbeatens in Division I — No. 1 Syracuse, No. 2 Princeton, No. 3 Cornell and No. 4 North Carolina.

Which is actually kind of criminal, considering that a third of the way through the season, the Hoyas were basically untouchable. They boasted the nation’s No. 1 defense (6.33 GAA) and No. 7 offense (16.50 GPG), with an average margin of victory (10.17) that was by far the best of any team. There was not a weakness to be found.

And while Lafayette, UMBC, Fairfield, Mount St. Mary’s, Bellarmine and Towson might not represent a murderer’s row of opponents, Georgetown had a March 14 trip to Chapel Hill scheduled as its coming-out party.

Two days before the game, with rumors swirling about the status of their season, the Hoyas had what Carraway called the perfect practice. As the players flawlessly navigated a transition drill with fleet feet, precise passing and an almost choral cadence of communication, assistant coach Michael Phipps turned to head coach Kevin Warne to marvel aloud.

“If this ends,” Phipps said to Warne, “I would’ve loved to see where this team ends up.”

“Potential is such a scary word. But it started a fire in us as coaches to go, ‘Wow, what if?’” Warne said, recalling the conversation. “Everything was sharp. Everybody was talking. It was a Thursday in March and, as a team progresses, you would have thought it was a Thursday in April.”

Carraway characterized the final practice as weird, in a good way.

“The vibe across the country was still very speculative. The majority of the team still thought we were going down to Carolina,” he said. “People were just flying around the field. We were crisp on offense. The defense was playing lockdown. Coach Warne is usually salivating at the mouth screaming at us, and he was dead quiet. The passion on the field was fantastic.”

For some reason, Carraway said, some pundits refuse to believe that Georgetown, which advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals nine times in 10 years from 1998-2007 (including a final four run in 1999) before a substantial dry spell, has regained fully its elite form. It was the subject of a speech he gave to the team before the season started.

The Hoyas were picked to finish third in the Big East, behind Denver and Villanova, despite being the two-time defending conference champions. Coaches questioned their ability to replace All-American attackmen Daniel Bucaro and Lucas Wittenberg and compensate for the departure of goalie Chris Brandau, who transferred to Maryland after emerging as a freshman starter late last spring.

Carraway had heard that song before. It sounded the same as when Charlie Ford graduated and Peter Conley transferred to Duke after the 2017 season and when Craig Berge, Ryan Hursey and Nick Marrocco rode off into the sunset having turned the tide of the program the next year.

“Year in, year out, no matter how much success Georgetown lacrosse has, we’re put down compared to other teams,” said Carraway, himself somewhat underrated despite coming off a 57-goal campaign. “People step up.”

Among the positive signs this season were the emergence of sophomore finisher Dylan Watson (23 goals) alongside Carraway (23 goals, 11 assists) and fifth-year senior Robert Clark (nine goals, 15 assists) on attack, the immediate impact of freshman Graham Bundy Jr. (eight goals, five assists) at midfield, the improvement of sophomore faceoff specialist James Reilly (73-for-106, 68.9 percent) and the restored confidence of junior goalie Owen McElroy (6.21 goals against average, 63.0 save percentage).

Even the alumni were excited. Members of the 2018 team turned up on a teamwide Zoom meeting earlier this week. Warne, wrangling two young children at home with his wife, Jennifer, wisely chose not to participate.

“You know what? I’m not sure I should come on this one,” he said, anticipating some virtual hijinks among emboldened former teammates. “Yeah, I should probably stay out of it.”

Warne also has been busy reassuring Georgetown’s incoming recruits, seniors in high school whose seasons were shelved. They received their official admissions letters this week. Everyone has questions about how 2021 will play out with regard to eligibility, roster size, playing opportunities and scholarships.

Like most other coaches, Warne is waiting for the March 30 vote of the NCAA Division I Council for more clarity on the rules of engagement given the unprecedented nature of the cancellation and widespread eligibility relief.

“There’s no ‘Coaching for Dummies’ on how to handle this situation,” Warne said. “Lacrosse coaches are getting stir-crazy as well. We’re creatures of habit. We’re used to the season ending, and then flipping the script.”

After Georgetown’s spirited pre-UNC practice March 12, the players stayed true to the Chipotle Thursdays tradition, eating fast-casual Mexican food and enjoying each other’s company. That’s when Warne got the call from athletic director Lee Reed. He sent an email to the team that the game, and likely the season, was canceled.

Warne thought their emotions might have subsided by the time they met the next day for a 10 a.m. meeting. Instead, they all bawled.

For Carraway, the scene of 40 young men crying represented the vulnerability and trust that comes with brotherhood.

For Warne, the raw emotion served as a reminder of what the Hoyas could have achieved with such commitment and passion.

“The greatest mystery that will never be solved was what could our 2020 team have done,” he said. “I wonder what this group could have done. That was the craziness of it.”