Georgetown has fired coach Patrick Ewing after six seasons and a demoralizing era for the Hoyas, the school announced Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:
- Ewing amassed a 75-109 overall record with only one winning season (2018-19) during his coaching tenure.
- His last two seasons were his worst, with the Hoyas going 6-25 and 7-24 and only recording two Big East wins in that span.
- As a player, Ewing led Georgetown to a national title in 1984 before starting his 17-year NBA career a year later.
The Athletic’s instant analysis:
Backstory
Ewing’s final game with Georgetown resulted in an 80-48 loss to Villanova in the opening round of the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden, where he rose to NBA stardom with the Knicks.
“No thoughts about my future,” Ewing said after the game. “The two seasons have been rough. I’m disappointed in the outcome of the last two years. My future is in the hands of our president, our athletic director and the board of trustees.”
Only two years ago, Ewing and the Hoyas beat Creighton in the Big East tournament final at the Garden and earned an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament. It marked Georgetown’s first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2014-15 season. However, the Hoyas lost in the first round to Colorado.
Cut to this year and the struggling program rode a 29-game Big East losing streak into late January, snapping it in a narrow win over DePaul.
How did it go so wrong?
This is going to sound harsh, but there is one overriding reason: Ewing simply ended up not being a very good college basketball coach. He was a respected longtime NBA assistant, but his skills did not translate to those required of a Georgetown men’s head basketball coach, on or off the floor.
He recruited OK at first, but never extremely well, and he was unable to retain his best talent for long. On the floor, what was supposed to be a breath of fresh air for fans when he arrived — proper NBA-style pace-and-space ball — ended up being totally anodyne and ineffective.
Georgetown never defended, never ran good stuff, never recruited top players, never earned an at-large tournament bid or came all that close. He never did any of the things you need to do to be effective at this level. Ewing’s stature at the school made fans squeamish about saying it at times — until these past two years — but the whole thing was an embarrassing disaster engineered by Georgetown’s adherence to the John Thompson III family and built by a coach massively out of his depth. — Brennan
What should Georgetown do now?
It needs a clean break, finally. Ewing was hired because Thompson III’s son was let go, and Thompson couldn’t stand the idea of a non-Thompson family member taking the program he built. If his biological son couldn’t be the coach anymore, his adopted son would be. Thompson III was a great man and a great coach, but Georgetown should have worked harder to balance its gratitude for his work with its desire to get out of his shadow years ago. Now is finally time.
Rick Pitino is commonly discussed as a replacement option, and he would undoubtedly do an excellent job, though this would be the 70-year-old’s last job and Georgetown may find itself looking for another coach in five years’ time. Providence coach Ed Cooley would be a slam-dunk hire, too, if Georgetown could lure Cooley away from his alma mater. One suggestion we would humbly make: Former Temple assistant Matt Langel, who has turned Colgate, one of the Patriot League’s most difficult jobs, into an annual mid-major powerhouse. Georgetown would be silly not to hear his thoughts in an interview, at least. — Brennan
What they’re saying
In the statement announcing the university’s decision to part ways with Ewing, the coach said he wished “the program nothing but success,” and he “will always be a Hoya.”
“Patrick Ewing is the heart of Georgetown basketball. I am deeply grateful to Coach Ewing for his vision, his determination, and for all that he has enabled Georgetown to achieve,” Georgetown president John J. DeGioia said in the statement. “Over these past six years, he was tireless in his dedication to his team and the young men he coached and we will forever be grateful to Patrick for his courage and his leadership in our Georgetown community.”
“It has been a privilege to work with Patrick over these past years and I deeply appreciate all of his hard work and efforts to support our student-athletes and the men’s basketball program,” said athletics director Lee Reed. “We are grateful to all those who have supported this program through this time. We will immediately launch a national search for our next coach and look forward to a bright future for Hoya basketball.”
Required reading
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
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