Patrick Ewing Needs Another Moment of Glory at the Garden

After his Georgetown staff misplaced at Xavier on Saturday night time to set a Massive East Convention report for futility, a solemn Patrick Ewing walked by means of the handshake line and shook palms with Xavier Coach Travis Steele, his employees and the Musketeers gamers.

Ewing retreated to the guests’ locker room for his postgame information convention and as soon as once more answered questions on a loss — on this case the lads’s basketball program’s twentieth straight and twenty fourth of the season — and whether or not his gamers had been “nonetheless holding onto the rope” and “nonetheless within the struggle.”

“Yeah, they’re nonetheless within the struggle, , I imagine so,” Ewing stated. “We’re positively dissatisfied within the final result of our season. This isn’t nowhere the place I anticipated us to be, or the group as an entire anticipated us to be. However it’s what it’s.”

Ewing, the Naismith Corridor of Fame middle who was the face of the Knicks within the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, has skilled his share of dramatic wins and losses, however he’s by no means endured such a protracted stretch of frustration and failure.

Georgetown (6-24) turned the primary staff in Massive East historical past — which started through the 1979-80 season — to complete a season 0-19 in convention play. Two different groups completed 0-18, most just lately DePaul through the 2008-9 season.

Approaching the tip of his fifth season, there are questions on Ewing’s future at Georgetown. Ewing, 59, has a 68-83 report and only one profitable season, in 2018-19. The Hoyas would be the No. 11 seed and face No. 6 Seton Corridor when the Massive East Event begins Wednesday at Madison Sq. Backyard, the positioning of a lot of Ewing’s best skilled moments.

On Friday, Ewing took to Twitter to say he had no plans to stop after this season.

“Any announcement about my future will come from me or Georgetown College,” he wrote.

He reiterated that sentiment after Saturday’s loss.

Lee Reed, Georgetown’s athletic director, gave Ewing a vote of confidence final week, saying the college was “dedicated to” Ewing and had “confidence that he can strengthen our program going ahead.”

“As a college with excessive requirements and expectations for each educational and athletic excellence, all of us share the frustration of a tough season,” Reed stated.

He added, “I want to thank all of our supporters and season-ticket holders for his or her ongoing dedication and specific my appreciation to the members of our staff for his or her laborious work.”

It was solely a 12 months in the past when a joyous and victorious Ewing strolled into the Georgetown locker room on the Backyard singing Drake lyrics.

After being picked to complete final within the convention’s preseason coaches ballot, the Hoyas had simply crushed Creighton within the Massive East match championship sport, incomes an computerized bid within the N.C.A.A. match — this system’s first berth because the 2014-15 season.

“Began from the underside, now we’re right here,” Ewing sang to his gamers, who quickly doused him with water and joined him in celebration.

It quickly turned a feel-good story across the faculty basketball world, with Iona Coach Rick Pitino, Ewing’s former coach with the Knicks within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, tweeting an image of the 2 of them and providing congratulations.

Now, Pitino has a unique message for Ewing amid his struggles.

“I really like Patrick, beloved teaching him, love him as an individual, love him as a participant, root for him on a regular basis,” Pitino stated. “I don’t know what to say concerning the situation apart from I’m a giant fan of Patrick.”

It wasn’t that way back that there was optimism for Georgetown’s long-suffering followers, who haven’t seen a championship since Ewing’s enjoying days.

Along with profitable the Massive East match final season, Ewing additionally pulled in a top-20 recruiting class, in line with 247Sports rankings, highlighted by the five-star wing Aminu Mohammed.

However the Hoyas misplaced their prime 4 scorers from final 12 months’s N.C.A.A. match staff, together with the massive man Qudus Wahab, who transferred to Maryland, the place he was averaging 7.9 factors and 5.7 rebounds by means of Sunday.

As a staff, Georgetown ranks final within the Massive East in discipline purpose share and factors allowed per sport and close to the underside in scoring.

“It’s simply powerful if you don’t have plenty of returning gamers that performed final 12 months,” stated Donald Carey, a graduate scholar guard who’s the staff’s second-leading scorer this 12 months after being its fifth-leading scorer final season.

He continued: “The chemistry wasn’t there precisely; the identical chemistry and momentum wasn’t there as a result of it was simply me and Dante that performed heavy minutes which might be returning,” referring to the sophomore level guard Dante Harris, who’s averaging 12.3 factors, 4.2 assists and a pair of.6 turnovers per sport.

Carey scored 17 factors when the Hoyas misplaced to Colorado within the first spherical of the 2021 N.C.A.A. match, however except Georgetown pulls off a miracle and wins the Massive East match, he received’t get to style March Insanity once more.

“It’s been powerful, it’s been powerful,” Carey stated. “Dropping is rarely simple, however the one approach to get out of it’s with forward-minded considering so that you simply have a look at the subsequent day, the subsequent sport, what can we do to get higher. What can we do to get a win?”

Wealthy Chvotkin, who’s in his forty eighth 12 months because the radio voice of Georgetown basketball and lined all 143 of Ewing’s faculty video games, stated he’s by no means seen something like this season.

“The underside line, it’s a really younger staff,” he stated in a cellphone interview. “It’s a piece in progress that they only have bother ending video games. All this stuff that they’ve been battling at sport’s finish have resulted in losses and so they simply battle to play 40 minutes. They play 32, they play 36 nicely and so they don’t end at sport’s finish.”

Ewing has additionally struggled with retaining gamers throughout his tenure, shedding 11 gamers to transfers as of June 2021. A few of these gamers are actually starring elsewhere. James Akinjo, who started his profession at Georgetown, is now on his third faculty cease and averaging 13.1 factors and 5.8 assists for Baylor, which received a share of the Massive 12 common season title with Kansas.

Earlier than the season started, Tre King, a 6-7 ahead who had spent three seasons at Jap Kentucky, left Georgetown with out ever enjoying a sport due to an off-court incident.

King averaged 14.9 factors and 6.2 rebounds per sport and earned All-Ohio Valley Convention first-team honors through the 2020-21 season. He possible would have been a key participant for Georgetown, however he transferred to Iowa State in December.

Ewing additionally misplaced the freshman guard Jordan Riley to shoulder surgical procedure through the season. The junior guard Wayne Bristol Jr., who transferred from Howard in January, was not eligible to play this semester.

“After all, it makes it tough,” Ewing stated. “Guys that you simply thought weren’t going to get plenty of minutes or had been going to have alternatives to develop, they weren’t given that chance. I needed to throw them into the hearth.”

The realm often known as the DMV— D.C., Maryland and Virginia — is thought for its high-level basketball expertise, from Adrian Dantley to Kevin Durant to Michael Beasley to present faculty gamers just like the Duke freshman guard Trevor Keels, a projected N.B.A. draft decide.

Harris, Mohammed (who was born in Nigeria) and Carey are among the many Georgetown gamers from the world, however the college hasn’t signed a D.C. Gatorade Participant of the Yr since Chris Wright in 2007.

Angelo Hernandez, a neighborhood grass-roots coach and a former highschool coach, believes the Hoyas must do a greater job getting in on native stars early.

“I don’t know what it’s, it simply appears like Georgetown can’t get out the funk of getting the youngsters from our space,” he stated in a cellphone interview. “I simply assume that they need to take a unique method and never be afraid to recruit these youngsters laborious. They recruit the youngsters from out of city laborious, however they don’t recruit the youngsters from right here laborious.”

As a dominant faculty huge man within the early Nineteen Eighties, Ewing dominated the Massive East together with the St. John’s star Chris Mullin. Ewing helped lead the Hoyas to 3 nationwide championship video games in his 4 seasons, guiding this system to the 1984 title underneath the Corridor of Fame coach John Thompson.

Like Ewing, Mullin returned to his alma mater to educate. He faltered in his four-year tenure, going 59-73 and 20-52 within the Massive East with one N.C.A.A. match look earlier than stepping down in 2019.

Ewing is now in an analogous place.

With the Massive East match set to start Wednesday, there’s all the time the hope that Georgetown might by some means make one other miraculous run, one which ends with Ewing singing Drake within the locker room as soon as once more.

“It’s a brand new season, something is feasible,” Ewing stated.

Added Carey: “The Massive East match is barely 4 video games, so if we win 4 video games, we’re again within the N.C.A.A. match.”