WASHINGTON — Before coaching his first game at Georgetown — indeed, his first game as a head coach at any level of basketball —“People could call me ‘the greatest Hoya ever,’ but as you know, if I don’t win, there will be another coach here, sooner or later,” Ewing said in 2017. “Every coach knows, as soon as ... you dot the I’s and cross the T’s, the writing’s on the wall. At some point in your career, you’re going to be let go. That’s just life in coaching.
The past two seasons were particularly poor: The Hoyas won a combined 13 games while losing 50, a winning percentage of .206. “As successful as I was as a player,” Ewing said when he was hired to succeed Thompson’s son, John III, as the coach of the Hoyas after 15 years as an assistant in the NBA, “that’s how successful I want to be as a coach.”He began, promisingly enough, by going 8-0. What followed was a harbinger of what was to come: Georgetown faded to 15-15 that season, a first-round loss in the Big East tournament and no postseason invitation.
A year later, with Georgetown on the way to sinking to 6-25 — breaking a mark that had stood for a half-century and setting a school record for most men's hoops losses in a season, which was replicated this season —During last offseason, all three of Ewing’s assistant coaches were replaced and several new players were brought in, but that did not help matters. And speculation about Ewing’s future that already was whirring only grew louder as this season fell apart.