At any other university, with any other coach, the decision would have been clear before the start of this Big East Tournament. But the university we are talking about is Georgetown, and the coach we are talking about is Patrick Ewing.
What better place to have this complicated discussion than Madison Square Garden?
“This is my house!” Ewing said repeatedly during and after his Hall of Fame Knicks career, sometimes with a profanity or two thrown in for good measure.
No, it wasn’t his house when late Wednesday night spilled into early Thursday morning, when the Hoyas found yet another way to lose in the closing minutes. The particulars don’t really matter; Georgetown closed the season having last won a game nearly three months ago.
Wearing a dark sweatsuit and orange sneakers, Ewing spent the night pumping his right fist and imploring his team to avoid its 21st consecutive defeat, and its 20th to a Big East opponent. Once, when Ewing barked instructions at his team, the old Big East broadcaster and former Seton Hall coach Bill Raftery said on FS1, “See the problem, he thinks he’s talking to Patrick Ewing.”
There are no Patrick Ewings at Georgetown anymore, so Seton Hall escaped with a 57-53 victory, leaving the Hoyas with that 0-20 conference record, the worst in Big East history.
With the season mercifully over, Ewing said he was proud of his team’s effort and committed to building the Hoyas into the kind of team he once played for in the 1980s.
“In life you’re going to have bumps in the road,” he said. “This year is my bump in the road. … I think my guys have handled it with class. I think I’ve handled it with class. I think our better years are ahead of us.”
This being Ewing’s fifth year, not his first, the numbers would likely get him fired at nearly every other Division I school in the country. He is 6-25 on the year and 68-84 for his career, with one winning season, one shocking Big East Tournament title (last March), one appearance in the NCAAs (a blowout loss to Colorado), and one appearance in the NIT (a loss to Harvard). Ewing’s program is, well, hard to characterize as a program. The Big Fella hasn’t recruited enough talented big fellas and smaller fellas, and he hasn’t kept enough of those he did sign from transferring out.
So this has to be it, right? Georgetown AD Lee Reed has to meet with Ewing and tell him that a change is in the best interests of all involved, correct?
No, it doesn’t have to be that way. And this isn’t about the reported contract extension Ewing received last year after taking the Hoyas on that magical run through the Big East Tournament.
Georgetown has enough money to cover whatever millions are owed its coach. This is about taking the same gamble on Ewing that the 7-footer from Cambridge, Mass., took on the university more than 40 years ago, when every major college in creation — many with more storied basketball traditions than Georgetown’s — desperately wanted America’s No. 1 high school prospect.
Together John Thompson and Ewing built a juggernaut that reached three NCAA finals, winning one, and made the Hoyas world famous. So yes, you can call it payback time. Or you can simply step back and take a bigger-picture view of the facts. Ewing hasn’t had any really good seasons, but this is his first really bad one. He did just prove that he could land a five-star recruit, Aminu Mohammed, and he did just prove that he could win four straight sudden-death games and a Big East Tournament title.
Ewing was widely respected as an NBA assistant, breaking down film and scouting opponents for 15 years. He didn’t forget how to coach between his 2017 hiring and now; in fact, he’s known to be a sound in-game strategist. Ewing is better at this than his fellow Dream Teamer Chris Mullin was at St. John’s.
But there’s no question he has failed to live up to his own standards. “It’s my goal to try to be consistent, get to the NCAA [Tournament], and hopefully one day win a couple of titles,” Ewing said after he was hired.
His predecessor, John Thompson III, was fired after delivering 11 straight winning seasons (before going 29-36 in his last two), eight trips to the NCAAs, one trip to the Final Four, and a winning percentage (65 percent) that was 20 points better than Ewing’s. If Georgetown didn’t do any favors for the iconic coach’s son in the end, why do one for Ewing here?
It’s not a favor, just an extended opportunity. After Reed gave him a public vote of confidence last week that could’ve been interpreted five different ways, Ewing tweeted this message: “First and foremost, I am not a quitter. My plan is to be back next year coaching at my alma mater and bringing this program back to prominence.”
And why not? Ewing arrived in this country from Jamaica in the mid-1970s wanting to be the next Pele, and made himself a basketball legend instead. His parents were laborers who raised their son on the value of an honest day’s work. “I’m what America’s all about,” Ewing once said.
His all-American story should continue at Georgetown for one more win-or-else year.
