Georgetown Basketball: Takeaways from the Hoyas hiring of Patrick Ewing

On Monday, Georgetown basketball hired program legend Patrick Ewing to be their next head coach.

The biggest storylines of this past Monday didn’t just consist of Opening Day in baseball or North Carolina defeating the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the National Championship game. The day also consisted of the Georgetown Hoyas hiring their next head coach, Patrick Ewing, to replace John Thompson III, who was fired a couple weeks ago.

Ewing, one of the greatest players in Georgetown history, was introduced as the new head man of the program on Wednesday.

Ewing helped the Hoyas win their only National Championship back in 1984, was the College Player of the Year in 1985 and won two Big East Player of the Year awards in back-to-back years (1984, 1985). The big man went on to be drafted first overall by the New York Knicks before making 11 All-Star teams and ultimately reaching the Basketball Hall of Fame.

As a coach, Ewing has no head coaching experience and has yet to even be an assistant at the college level. The good news for Georgetown, though, is that Ewing has paid his dues as a coach. The Hall of Famer has been an assistant at the NBA level since 2002 and was most recently with the Charlotte Hornets.

Ewing comes to Georgetown as the program is in a major state of disarray. The Hoyas have finished under .500 in two straight seasons, haven’t reached the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four seasons and haven’t been truly nationally relevant since realignment of the new Big East. Add in the fact that L.J. Peak left school early and four-star recruit Tremont Waters opted to re-open his recruitment, and Ewing has his work cut out for him.

So what can we take away from this hiring? Here are Busting Brackets’ thoughts from the second biggest storyline in the college hoops world this week.