Oof: after a 75-109 record over the last six years, Patrick Ewing will not be returning to coach the Georgetown Hoyas
You know, back when the news broke that Patrick Ewing was going to become the new head coach for Georgetown, I actually thought hmm, this might actually lead to something interesting with the Hoyas. After all, Ewing had spent the better part of the last 10+ years as an assistant coach in the NBA, even if Michael Jordan was cockblocking him repeatedly from getting a head coach position, surely he would have some experience and merit now and have something to contribute to someone.
And being the Georgetown legend he is, who better else to make a union with than his alma mater that he led to a National Championship back in 1984? He’s still an NBA legend, and often times, young, impressionable prospects tend to look up to former players, especially with the pedigree of a Patrick Ewing. I thought that maybe Ewing could usher in a new generation to Georgetown, where his name could easily boost recruiting, and maybe we’d see a new era of college hoops where the big man reigned supreme once again.
Well, we certainly did see a different era of Georgetown basketball over the last years, under the tutelage of Patrick Ewing; one of colossal failure, unfulfilled expectations, and save for one freakish Big East championship run out of nowhere, just a whole lot of what Patrick Ewing has been best known for: getting owned.
How naïve of me, or blindly optimistic I was to think that Patrick Ewing would deliver anything else.
Seriously, Georgetown was always one of those teams where their name alone could draw some recognition. John Thompson, Jr. built a program whose reputation alone probably won more games than they should have, where the reputation alone boosted performance long after the level of talent probably existed there. Thompson III continued a fairly consistently good program when he took the reigns in 2004. They were pretty much always a lock to be in the NCAA tournament, and just about every time I saw their name in the bracket, I’d at least give them a win in the first round, because usually they were reliable for at least that much.
I can’t say I blame the Hoyas for going in the direction of Patrick Ewing, being an NBA legend as well as a John Thompson product, but man did they ever whiff on colossal proportions with that choice. 75-109 is pretty horrendous, and that doesn’t illustrate some of his more punctuated lowlights, like where there was a stretch where he went 0-29 in conference play. I mean really, Villanova, Xavier and St. John’s were some tough draws over that stretch, but Ewing was also losing to schools like DePaul, Providence and Butler, school most people probably don’t even know are even in the Big East.
His tenure was so bad, Ewing was trying to get the tradition of the post-game handshake line abolished, because after 29 straight conference losses, I think I’d be sick of having to congratulate the winners during all those losses too.
Anyway because this doesn’t need to be a novel like I so often try to remind myself when it comes to my brogging habits, yet another chapter in the book of Patrick Ewing comes to an end, with failure, unfulfilled expectations and just plain getting owned. Seems like all those times MJ refused to promote him to a head coaching position are validated, considering Pat couldn’t even shape young, moldable talents into winners, so god forbid he have any better luck with a bunch of boneheaded knuckleheads like the vast majority of the NBA is today.
