After his Georgetown staff misplaced at Xavier on Saturday night time to set a Large East Convention file for futility, a solemn Patrick Ewing walked by means of the handshake line and shook arms 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 have been “nonetheless holding on to the rope” and “nonetheless within the battle.”
“Yeah, they’re nonetheless within the battle, you recognize, I consider so,” Ewing mentioned. “We’re positively upset within the end result of our season. This isn’t nowhere the place I anticipated us to be, or the group as a complete anticipated us to be. However it’s what it’s.”
Ewing, the Basketball Corridor of Fame heart who was the face of the Knicks within the Eighties and ’90s, has skilled his share of dramatic wins and losses, however he has by no means endured such a protracted stretch of frustration and failure.
Georgetown (6-24) turned the primary staff in Large East historical past — which started in the course of the 1979-80 season — to complete a season 0-19 in convention play. Two different groups completed 0-18, most just lately DePaul in the course of the 2008-9 season.
Approaching the top of his fifth season, there are questions on Ewing’s future at Georgetown. Ewing, 59, has a 68-83 file and only one profitable season, in 2018-19. The Hoyas would be the No. 11 seed and face No. 6 Seton Corridor when the Large East match begins Wednesday at Madison Sq. Backyard, the location of a lot of Ewing’s best skilled moments.
On Friday, Ewing took to Twitter to say he had no plans to give up 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 varsity 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 mentioned.
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 arduous work.”
It was solely a yr 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 overwhelmed Creighton within the Large East match championship recreation, incomes an automated 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 school basketball world, with Iona Coach Rick Pitino, Ewing’s former coach with the Knicks within the mid-Eighties, tweeting an image of the 2 of them and providing congratulations.
Now, Pitino has a distinct message for Ewing amid his struggles.
“I really like Patrick, liked teaching him, love him as an individual, love him as a participant, root for him on a regular basis,” Pitino mentioned. “I don’t know what to say concerning the state of affairs aside 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 taking part in days.
Along with profitable the Large East match final season, Ewing additionally pulled in a top-20 recruiting class, in keeping with 247Sports rankings, highlighted by the five-star wing Aminu Mohammed.
However the Hoyas misplaced their prime 4 scorers from final yr’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 Large East in discipline purpose share and factors allowed per recreation and close to the underside in scoring.
“It’s simply robust whenever you don’t have lots of returning gamers that performed final yr,” mentioned Donald Carey, a graduate scholar guard who’s the staff’s second-leading scorer this yr 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 are returning,” referring to the sophomore level guard Dante Harris, who’s averaging 12.3 factors, 4.2 assists and a couple of.6 turnovers per recreation.
Carey scored 17 factors when the Hoyas misplaced to Colorado within the first spherical of the 2021 N.C.A.A. match, however until Georgetown pulls off a miracle and wins the Large East match, he received’t get to style March Insanity once more.
“It’s been robust, it’s been robust,” Carey mentioned. “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 following day, the following recreation, what can we do to get higher. What can we do to get a win?”
Wealthy Chvotkin, who’s in his forty eighth yr because the radio voice of Georgetown basketball and coated all 143 of Ewing’s school video games, mentioned he’s by no means seen something like this season.
“The underside line, it’s a really younger staff,” he mentioned in a telephone interview. “It’s a piece in progress that they simply have bother ending video games. All this stuff that they’ve been combating at recreation’s finish have resulted in losses they usually simply battle to play 40 minutes. They play 32, they play 36 nicely they usually don’t end at recreation’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 at the moment are starring elsewhere. James Akinjo, who started his profession at Georgetown, is now on his third school cease and averaging 13.1 factors and 5.8 assists for Baylor, which received a share of the Large 12 common season title with Kansas.
Earlier than the season started, Tre King, a 6-7 ahead who had spent three seasons at Japanese Kentucky, left Georgetown with out ever taking part in a recreation due to an off-court incident.
King averaged 14.9 factors and 6.2 rebounds per recreation and earned All-Ohio Valley Convention first-team honors in the course of the 2020-21 season. He doubtless 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 in the course of the season. The junior guard Wayne Bristol Jr., who transferred from Howard in January, was not eligible to play this semester.
“In fact, it makes it tough,” Ewing mentioned. “Guys that you simply thought weren’t going to get lots of minutes or have been going to have alternatives to develop, they weren’t given that chance. I needed to throw them into the fireplace.”
The world referred to 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 school 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 realm, however the faculty hasn’t signed a D.C. Gatorade Participant of the Yr since Chris Wright in 2007.
Angelo Hernandez, an area grass-roots coach and a former highschool coach, believes the Hoyas have to do a greater job getting in on native stars early.
“I don’t know what it’s, it simply looks like Georgetown can’t get out the funk of getting the children from our space,” he mentioned in a telephone interview. “I simply assume that they should take a distinct method and never be afraid to recruit these youngsters arduous. They recruit the children from out of city arduous, however they don’t recruit the children from right here arduous.”
As a dominant school large man within the early Eighties, Ewing dominated the Large East together with the St. John’s star Chris Mullin. Ewing helped lead the Hoyas to a few nationwide championship video games in his 4 seasons, guiding this system to the 1984 title below the Corridor of Fame coach John Thompson.
Like Ewing, Mullin returned to his alma mater to teach. He faltered in his four-year tenure, going 59-73 and 20-52 within the Large East with one N.C.A.A. match look earlier than stepping down in 2019.
Ewing is now in an analogous place.
With the Large East match set to start Wednesday, there may be at all times the hope that Georgetown might someway 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 mentioned.
Added Carey: “The Large East match is just 4 video games, so if we win 4 video games, we’re again within the N.C.A.A. match.”