Georgetown fires coach Patrick Ewing; national search underway

Georgetown has officially fired head men’s basketball coach Patrick Ewing one day after the Hoyas’ 80-48 loss to sixth-seeded Villanova in the opening round of the Big East Tournament.

The Hoyas fell behind by double digits less than 10 minutes into the first half, were down 21 points at halftime and never threatened in the second half.

Ewing walked off the court alone Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, the site of his greatest moments as an NBA player with the New York Knicks, after what was his final game leading Georgetown.

“No thoughts about my future,” Ewing said after the game. “The (last) two season [have] been rough. Disappointed in the outcomes of these last two years. My future’s in the hands of our president and our [athletic director] and the board of directors.

“It was a rough year. It was not the year we thought we would have had. We kept fighting. We didn’t give up, and we’re disappointed the season ended the way that it did. … I am proud of being a Georgetown Hoya. This institution has been great to me over the years. I’d be honored to come back as the coach here. That’s it.”

Ewing’s firing ends a tenure that began with a storybook homecoming of one of the best players in program history coming back to lead the team as its head coach in 2017. However, things went downhill quickly thereafter.

Ewing went 75-109 in six years with the Hoyas, only reaching the NCAA Tournament once in 2021 — and that only came after the Hoyas made a surprising run to win that year’s Big East Tournament and secure an automatic bid.

Georgetown posted a 2-38 record in the Big East over the past two seasons.

Ewing had no college coaching experience and had only served as an assistant coach in the NBA when Georgetown hired him, but the move was still met with fanfare because of his legendary playing career there in the 1980s.

Before going on to have a Hall of Fame career in the NBA, Ewing was a three-time consensus first-team All-American with Georgetown and led the Hoyas to the 1984 national championship, where he was named NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player. He won national college player of the year the following season before being selected No. 1 overall by the Knicks in the 1985 NBA Draft.

Georgetown will begin to search for a coach who can bring the storied men’s basketball program back to the constant success it experienced in the 1980s and 1990s under Ewing’s former coach, John Thompson Jr. The Hoyas have not reached the Final Four since 2007 under Thompson’s son John Thompson III, and have not secured an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament since 2015, also under Thompson III.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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