#GEORGETOWN SCUTTLEBUTT FULL#

“I remember it like it was yesterday: Patrick had a sense of where he was, and where the other four guys on the team were, and the five guys on the other team were, at all times,” said Craig Esherick, a Georgetown assistant when Ewing was in college, then Thompson’s successor. Truth is, Ewing wasn’t expected to be a coach at all. And I’m going to do the best job I can to walk in his footsteps.” We’re the roots he sprinkled out into the world to do our part to make this place a better place,” the 58-year-old Ewing said. “All of his players, we’re all part of his legacy. He also sees traces of Thompson, the towering figure in charge of the Hoyas from 1972-99.Įwing, who has draped a white towel over his shoulder during games as a tribute to his mentor, embraces the idea of representing the man known as Big John. “I’ve never seen anyone go after a 50-pound weakling with the same ferocity he goes after a 500-pound rhinoceros.” In Ewing the Coach, Smith sees remnants of Ewing the Player. But they were beating Creighton’s behind! That was pretty crazy.” “I started out with an expletive,” Smith said with a chuckle. So Smith texted a 20-strong group chat populated by former Georgetown players and team managers. That’s precisely what Gene Smith, Ewing’s college teammate and roommate, was thinking, too, while following along on TV.

#GEORGETOWN SCUTTLEBUTT FULL#

“It’s great,” Ewing said, “to see everything come full circle.” Defense.”Īdding to the unmistakable symbolism, the 73-48 upset of Creighton in the final happened to come 49 years to the day after Georgetown’s hiring of Thompson, who died last August. “This team is built in his image,” Georgetown athletic director Lee Reed said. And so are the Hoyas (13-12), courtesy of an out-of-nowhere, offense-stifling, four-win run to the conference tournament title at Madison Square Garden, where Ewing played most of his Hall of Fame NBA career for the New York Knicks. So much so that the current edition, which included nine new players, was picked to finish last in the Big East - and then started 3-8. “On any day, any team can beat you or you can beat any team.”įor much of this season and, indeed, for much of his four years as the men’s basketball coach at his alma mater in the nation’s capital, Ewing has been on the wrong side of that equation. “That’s what college basketball is all about,” he continued. 5 Colorado in the East Region on Saturday, Georgetown’s first NCAA Tournament game in six years. But all of the experiences were great,” Ewing said from Indianapolis, where he will coach the No. And unfortunately, losing to Villanova in ’85.

Beating Houston, going up against Hakeem The Dream - thank God, my team was much better. “I got robbed versus North Carolina, with all of those goaltending calls.

Georgetown scuttlebutt