Patrick Ewing Needs to Resign
The “Fire Ewing” chants haven’t started yet, but they’re coming. After losing to American, after a 5-plus year descent from mediocrity to humiliation, they have to. This program is in freefall on and off the court, losing in astonishing fashion while killing what little fan support remains. Georgetown basketball is dead and we’re running out of time to revive it. Patrick Ewing needs to go.
There’s no way around it: Hoya basketball is embarrassing. Last season’s team couldn’t win a single Big East game; they posted Georgetown’s worst record in half a century. This year’s team needed overtime to beat a Coppin St. team that lost to Charlotte by 23 the night before. They lost by 18 to a middling LMU team, then blew a 20-point lead against La Salle before scraping out a win. And now, they’ve lost to American for the first time in 40 years — potentially the worst loss in program history. Every game, this program seems to plunge to previously unthinkable depths.
The same problems plague Georgetown every season. The Hoyas play weak 3-point defense, leaving someone wide open behind the arc on seemingly every possession. Their offensive play is deeply undisciplined; Ewing’s teams have never ranked better than 7th in the Big East in turnovers per game. Routine second-half collapses make Hoya basketball borderline unwatchable. There’s annual roster churn, so Ewing’s essentially working with a different team every year. Player retention is so bad that last year’s captain, Don Carey, transferred to Maryland. This year’s team features 7 new transfers and the starting lineup is composed entirely of transfer players. For a program with so much turnover, Georgetown’s flaws under Ewing have been remarkably consistent.
In his five years as head coach, Ewing has a .292 winning percentage in the Big East. Georgetown’s best finish in the KenPom rankings was 63rd, and no Hoya coached by Ewing has been drafted. The only true bright spot in his tenure was the 2021 Big East championship, an incredible four-day run that capped an otherwise inconsistent season. But four days of brilliance can’t excuse five years of failure. When the same issues come up season after season and the Hoyas post the same mediocre results, it’s time for a change. Ewing won’t lead Georgetown back to greatness. He won’t even lead the Hoyas back to relevance.
Ewing’s failure has consequences, and it’s especially evident in deteriorating fan support. Apathy defines this program. Attendance was lagging even before Ewing’s tenure and it’s hit embarrassing lows this season. Capital One was nearly two-thirds empty for the season opener — and that was the best-attended game this season. It’s already tough to create a fun gameday environment inside a cavernous NBA arena, and it’s impossible when we can’t even come close to filling it. Georgetown basketball is no longer a draw for fans outside the university community and that’s increasingly the case for students as well. Once an integral part of the Georgetown experience, basketball has become an afterthought for most students. There are still students who care today, but there will be fewer and fewer each year this program stays irrelevant. It’s sad enough that Georgetown basketball is this bad. It’s even sadder that nobody seems to care.
The university administration certainly doesn’t care about winning. They don’t even care about being competitive. If they did, Ewing would’ve been out after the atrocious 2021–22 season. But in a quintessentially Georgetown dilemma, money and legacy stand in the way of reason. After the Hoyas’ 2021 Big East championship, Ewing reportedly received a fully guaranteed $11.25 million extension — a buyout the university will be hesitant to pay. And Patrick Ewing is Patrick Ewing. He’s still a Hall of Famer, the best player on Georgetown’s championship-winning 1984 team, and the greatest player in school history. But Ewing’s extensive contributions as a player don’t justify keeping him as our head coach.
Georgetown is so infatuated with its legacy that it’s forgotten how to build one. A championship four decades ago doesn’t fill seats today. It doesn’t win games. At some point, the great Georgetown teams of the 80s and 90s don’t matter to fans or recruits anymore. At that point, there’s nothing special about Georgetown basketball — and that point is coming soon. The only way to prevent that is to start winning again, and that hasn’t happened under Ewing.
Unfortunately, Ewing has given no indication that he’ll resign. He doesn’t seem to realize what fans, the media, and perhaps even some players understand: it’s over. Georgetown basketball has no path back to relevance under his leadership, and it’s time for both parties to move forward. If Ewing steps down, he’ll save Georgetown over $11 million. He’ll give the university a final chance to save this program while Georgetown basketball still means something. While he may leave disappointed, he can leave on good terms. But if he tries to stay, he’ll force a choice every Hoya fan should fear: accept an unacceptable status quo or pay a sizable buyout. The fans that remain won’t just be frustrated; they’ll become hostile. There’s no need for this to get any uglier, especially given Ewing’s place in Georgetown’s history. If he resigns soon, it won’t.
Patrick Ewing is and always will be a Georgetown legend. He did his best as our coach and it didn’t work out. There’s no shame in that. But we’ve reached a point where this can’t continue. As painful as it might be to fire Georgetown’s greatest player, this program needs change now. It’s time for Ewing to recognize that and resign.
