Georgetown reaches into its past, hires Ewing

From the moment Georgetown announced the dismissal of John Thompson III, it was clear the greatest challenge the school faced in making its next hire was straddling the Hoyas’ storied past and moving them into the future as well. The hire of Patrick Ewing should do just that. It’s clear that John Thompson Jr.’s fingerprints are all over this hire – the man still commands a great deal of power there, though the awkward situation with his son’s ouster remains – which makes sense seeing as Ewing is arguably the greatest player to ever play for the elder Thompson.

Ewing led Georgetown to three national title games (winning one) before going on to have a Hall of Fame career in the NBA, with most of his 17 years spent with the New York Knicks.

Though the natural instinct is to compare Georgetown’s hiring of Ewing to that of St. John’s and Chris Mullin, the situations are actually quite different. Mullin had zero coaching experience when he was hired in 2015 to resurrect St. John’s, meaning he was a hire made solely based on the idea of rejuvenating a program by hiring a famously successful former player.

While that latter part is the case with Georgetown, too, Ewing has bounced around the NBA as an assistant coach since 2003, most recently with the Charlotte Hornets. It appears, instead of waiting around for an NBA head coaching opportunity, he jumped at a college one.