page_title: 2017–18 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team
section_title: Patrick Ewing arrives
hierarchical_section_title: 2017–18 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team / Patrick Ewing arrives
caption_attribution_description: English: Patrick Ewing on court
context_page_description: The 2017–18 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team represented Georgetown University in the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Hoyas, led by first-year head coach Patrick Ewing, played their home games at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. as members of the Big East Conference. They finished the season 15–15, 5–13 in Big East play to finish in eighth place. They lost in the first round of the Big East Tournament to St. John's.
context_section_description: On April 3, 2017, Georgetown hired Patrick Ewing to replace the fired John Thompson III as head coach. Generally considered the greatest player in Georgetown men's basketball history, Ewing had led the Georgetown teams of 1981 through 1985, which had reached the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament′s championship game three times and won one national championship, in 1984. He then went on to a Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame 17-season playing career in the National Basketball Association, playing for the New York Knicks from 1985 to 2000, the Seattle SuperSonics from 2000 to 2001, and the Orlando Magic from 2001 to 2002. After that, he spent 15 years as an NBA assistant coach, with the Washington Wizards from 2002 to 2003, the Houston Rockets from 2003 to 2006, the Orlando Magic from 2007 to 2012, and the Charlotte Bobcats/Charlotte Hornets from 2012 to 2017. Although he had made it clear that he desired a head coaching job in the NBA and had interviewed for head coaching positions, he had never been a head coach at any level before taking the job at Georgetown. After taking over at Georgetown, he told the press that he never would have considered taking a college coaching job anywhere except at Georgetown where, he said, "I was able to...spend four of the best years of my life."
  After graduating from Georgetown in 1985, Ewing had left the world of college basketball behind completely during his 32 years of playing and coaching in the NBA. The role of a college coach differed significantly from that of an NBA coach: Player acquisition was very different, requiring compliance with a myriad of National Collegiate Athletic Association recruiting and eligibility rules and a nearly constant recruiting effort. Since his college days, much had changed in college basketball, including the rise of the influence of the Amateur Athletic Union and the orientation of recruiting and coaching toward developing players for NBA careers, as well as the impatience of many college players, who tended to view their college careers as a necessary step on their way to an NBA career but no longer viewed college as a four-year – or even any more than a one-year – commitment. College coaching also required a significant amount of off-court player management, such as ensuring players went to class and met Georgetown's academic eligibility requirements. Critics of Georgetown's decision to hire Ewing argued that his lack of experience in these matters would undermine his ability to lead the Georgetown program. Ewing countered that he had a great deal of experience with young NBA players who had foregone some or all of their college eligibility to play in the NBA and that he had hired a staff including assistant coaches Louis Orr and Robert Kirby – that could provide him with well-informed advice and guide him through the modern world of college basketball. However, his arrival required the departure of his son, Patrick Ewing Jr., a former Georgetown player who had served under John Thompson III as an assistant coach since August 2015; under Georgetown University's nepotism policies, the younger Ewing was not allowed to serve in a position in which he reported directly to his father. Many commentators mocked the idea of a nepotism clause at Georgetown given John Thompson III's 13-year tenure as head coach while his father, former Georgetown head coach John Thompson Jr., remained a major figure in the men's basketball program, but the clause did not apply in that case because the younger Thompson was not on his father's staff, reporting to athletic director Lee Reed and not to his father.
  Ewing said he would abandon John Thompson III's deliberate "Princeton offense" and move Georgetown's game toward an uptempo, NBA-style offense favored by NBA scouts and more suitable to the playing style of contemporary players. He also promised a more physical defense of the type that both Georgetown and the original Big East Conference had been known for in their 1980s heyday. He also told reporters that he thought he could improve Georgetown's recruiting e
caption: Head coach Patrick Ewing on court on April 12, 2018.
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