Why Patrick Ewing and Georgetown are the feel-good story of March Madness so far

The only way the Georgetown Hoyas were going to make the 2021 NCAA tournament was by winning the Big East tournament. It wasn’t going to be easy. The Hoyas entered the field with the No. 8 seed in an 11-team conference, meaning they’d have to win four games in four days to win it all. It seemed like an impossible task for a team that ended the regular season at 7-9 in the league and didn’t win more than two games in a row all season.

Head coach Patrick Ewing has been looking for a breakthrough since taking over his alma mater four years ago, and he finally got it. Georgetown punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament with a win over No. 2 seed Creighton, 73-48, in the championship game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

The Hoyas started their run by defeating No. 9 seed Marquette, 68-49, in the first round on Wednesday. Georgetown then pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament, knocking off No. 1 seed Villanova, 72-71, in the quarterfinals. The Hoyas outlasted Seton Hall in overtime in the semifinals before securing the automatic bid by blowing out Creighton in the title game.

This is the first time Georgetown has won the Big East tournament since 2015. It’s incredible to see Ewing — the greatest player in Hoyas history — be the man to lead this run. The fact that he did it playing at Madison Square Garden, the arena where he once starred as a member of the New York Knicks, makes it even cooler.

It feels like everyone will be rooting for Ewing and Georgetown to go on another run in the NCAA tournament. Here’s why it’s so great to see Ewing find success with the Hoyas.

Patrick Ewing is an NBA Hall of Fame inductee and one of the greatest centers of his generation, but that didn’t make finding head coaching opportunities any easier to come by. Ewing has been grinding his way up the coaching ladder since he retired as a player. Until he finally got the job at Georgetown in 2017, he had spent 13 years as an assistant coach in the NBA.

Ewing was an assistant with the Washington Wizards, Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic, and Charlotte Hornets before he was hired by the Hoyas. He did interview for the Sacramento Kings and Memphis Grizzlies’ head coaching jobs in 2016, but the majority of his time in the NBA he struggled to even get an interview. The NBA’s dubious history with hiring Black head coaches made his struggle even more frustrating given his credentials as a player and on the bench.

Georgetown had been led by Ewing’s former college coach John Thompson or his son John Thompson III for all but six season since 1972. After the program parted ways with Thompson III in 2017, Ewing finally got his first shot to be a head coach at any level.

Ewing looked like he had put together a solid roster at Georgetown heading into last season, but things went sideways quickly.

Four players left the program in the middle of the season, including long-time starters James Akinjo and Josh LeBlanc. There were allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and burglary for some of the players who left the roster.

At the end of the season, Georgetown’s leading scorer Mac McClung announced he was transferring to Texas Tech. What started out as a promising year for Georgetown ended with a seven-game losing streak and a first round loss in the Big East tournament.

He added Chudier Bile as a transfer from Northwestern St. and Donald Carey from Siena. He recruited freshman Dante Harris to be his starting point guard. Jamorko Pickett, Qudus Wahab, and Jahvon Blair stuck around from last season and turned into dependable performers.

It feels like the team had a different hero every night during its Big East tournament run. Harris scored 18 and Wahab scored 17 in the upset over Villanova. Pickett scored 19 in the win over Seton Hall in the semis. Bile was the star in the title game by scoring 19 points against Creighton.

Georgetown will enter the tournament as the No. 85 ranked offense and the No. 41 ranked defense in the country. It isn’t a great team by any means, but it got hot at the right time. That’s what March is all about.

Ewing is the greatest player in Georgetown history. He led the Hoyas to three Final Four appearances and the program’s lone national championship in 1984. He has stated repeatedly that he came back to the school with the goal of building a sustainable winner like the one the program enjoyed when he was a player.

Ewing also had an excellent career with the New York Knicks after becoming the first pick in the 1985 NBA Draft despite never winning an NBA championship. His No. 33 is retired in the MSG rafters. Ewing said “this is my house,” after Georgetown defeated Villanova in the Big East quarterfinals. He was also hassled by security during that win, which was unfortunate for an all-time great returning to the building where he once starred.

It’s wild that the Hoyas got this far. The story isn’t over just yet.