Thoughts on Patrick Ewing Emerging as Serious Candidate for Georgetown Head Coaching Job
It’s the last big job open and quite honestly it’s one of the most confusing ones. Indiana will always be Indiana and is often regarded by coaches as a top-15 job (not program, just overall job.) Georgetown on the other hand could be there, but it’s too cloudy thanks to the Thompson name. Don’t get me wrong, the coaching job John Thompson II and even JT3 to a degree did was fabulous. JT2 brought them to fame and made Georgetown, well, Georgetown. But, that’s not the case anymore. In the new Big East they are an afterthought. They haven’t had the success yet in this new league, especially in March.
So with JT2 let go the question was do you go outside the family or keep someone familiar with the program. As Jon Rothstein reported, Patrick Ewing has now emerged as a serious candidate for the job. It would be very much keeping it in the family as he’s the most successful Hoya at the NCAA level and arguably in the NBA too (really just an Iverson vs Ewing career debate).
If Ewing gets hired it makes sense. I’ll understand. But, it won’t be the smartest hire. It just shows that it will be another Thompson coaching job. Do Georgetown fans really want that? Everything done will be a ‘yeah, but’ situation as long as JT2 is alive with someone he’s associated with in charge.
Ewing has been regarded as a strong assistant in the NBA and many thought he would get a head coaching job eventually there. He got passed over a couple of times and now has his eyes on Georgetown. I get it. He can come home, use his name to recruit and coach. But, the NBA is different than college. It’s not the same game and coaching strategies don’t necessarily translate well. I wouldn’t love this hire. It feels a little bit like St. John’s bringing back Chris Mullin. You bring back your best player and hope that wins the press conference and get a couple big name recruits to come.
Personally, I wanted Georgetown to go outside the family and get a guy like Jamion Christian. Let him build the program and really make Georgetown something. You have some time as it’s not a huge group of guys returning. Plus, you give a guy at least with experience coaching at the collegiate level the keys to the program. Next you have to wonder what assistants he’d hire. Does he only hire ‘Georgetown guys’ or is he able to get people outside the program? That’s the key with guys like this. They need strong assistants who know the college game.
Like I said, I get it and if Ewing gets the job I hope he’s successful. College basketball is better when Georgetown is good. The Big East luckily has had Villanova to be the flag-bearer the last couple of years, but the plan was to have Georgetown there with them. Let’s hope that happens sooner than later.