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Georgetown is back in the NCAA tournament. And this time it’s with program legend Patrick Ewing as head coach.
The Hoyas, the No.8 seed in the Big East tournament, faced No.17 Creighton in the Championship game on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, an arena Ewing called home for 15 years as member of the New York Knicks.
The Ewing team also looked home.
The Hoyas started off slow, missing 12 of their first 14 shots. From there, however, they came out of an early deficit and embarked on an 18-0 run to enter halftime with an impressive 36-18 lead.
The Hoyas kept their footing on the pedal in the second half and were comfortably in the double-digit lead the rest of the time, eventually claiming an impressive 73-48 victory.
Chudier Bile led all scorers, registering 19 points and eight rebounds for the Hoyas while Jahvon Blair added 18 points off the bench. Qudus Wahab posted a double-double with 11 points and 12 tables and Dante Harris completed the stats sheet with 10 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
With the win, Georgetown earned the Big East’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament, its first since 2015. It also marks the program’s first Big East tournament title since 2007.
What does this mean for Georgetown?
Ewing took over as head coach of his alma mater in 2017, succeeding John Thompson III, son of the inimitable John Thompson. The elder Thompson, who died last year, brought Ewing to Georgetown in the early 1980s and the 7-foot Ewing was the key cog that brought the Hoyas to their first and only national championship in 1984.
After decades as an NBA player and coach, Ewing was summoned to Georgetown in hopes of revitalizing an intermediate program. The Hoyas have reached the NCAA tournament eight times under Thompson III, including a Final Four run in 2007, but the program’s last NCAA tournament trip was in 2015.
Since then, it’s been a lot of mediocrity. And that mostly continued under Ewing. The Hoyas have played in an NIT and have never finished above .500 in the Big East game in its four seasons. They finished the 2020-21 regular season with a lackluster overall record of 9-12 with a 7-9 in conference.
But things can change quickly in March. The Hoyas caught fire in the playoffs, earning four straight wins to automatically advance to the NCAA tournament.
It all started with a 19-point victory over Marquette in the first round. Then comes a big surprise, a 72-71 victory over the No. 1 seed Villanova in the quarter-finals. In the semifinals, Georgetown outlasted Seton Hall, 66-58, to stage Saturday night’s showdown against Creighton.
Whether Georgetown’s momentum will continue into the NCAA tournament remains to be seen. Either way, a Big East title is a big deal for Ewing as he tries to rebuild the program into an eternal conference title contender and NCAA tournament participant. Recruiting has been a bit of a disappointment under Ewing, but his 2021 class is currently ranked No.6 nationally by Rivals.com.
Some of the top class leaders on this current squad will surely move on, but guys like Wahab (a sophomore) and Harris (a freshman) are legitimate building blocks for the future. Aminu Mohammed, Ewing’s first five-star rookie, is also expected to fuel the program to move forward.
Georgetown the Tender Thief
The only way Georgetown could reach the NCAA tournament this season was to win the Big East tournament. This is exactly what he did. In the process, Georgetown will steal an offer from one of those bubble-hovering teams, yearning for a wide spot.
This could potentially include old Big East rival Syracuse, who lost to Virginia on a bell batsman in the ACC tournament quarterfinals.
Other teams that could be affected by Georgetown’s place in the tournament include mid-majors like Colorado State, St. Louis, Drake and Utah State. Ole Miss, Boise State and Memphis are also in the mix for an at-large.
Like Georgetown, the State of Oregon in the Pac-12 and Cincinnati in the AAC can steal offers if they win their respective conference tournaments.
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