Georgetown Basketball is at a Crossroads

Inside the Georgetown basketball program, change is rare.

Since John Thompson Jr. stepped down in 1999, the Hoyas have had three head coaches: Big John’s top assistant, his son, and his most beloved player. Even when Craig Esherick and JTIII were fired, there was relative continuity within the program.

This is not to discount the last 20-plus years—heck, the Hoyas went to a Final Four under JTIII. And I’m certainly not in the business of rehashing the Ewing hire. It was a big risk with obvious upside. Had Ewing succeeded in bringing Georgetown basketball back to national relevance, we’d all be singing the praises of those involved.

Instead, the Hoyas plummeted to previously unforeseen lows under Ewing. The program now sits at a critical juncture.

More and more, it seems like Georgetown’s strategy of staying the course—some might say clinging to the past—is not the recipe for a successful future. Amidst the Hoyas’ worst season in program history, it’s entirely possible that Ewing won’t be coaching on the Hilltop come next fall. If the university does decide to move on from Patrick Ewing, it’s time for an outside hire, and more importantly, an institutional reset. 

At this point, I’m not sure what an “inside hire” would even look like. Georgetown isn’t at the level of North Carolina or Duke, where successful assistant coaches and former-players turned coaches grow on trees. For the average Hoya fan, an outside hire seems obvious. In a recent Casual Hoya article listing potential coaching hires, none of the candidates mentioned previously played or coached at Georgetown. 

But as we know, things operate a little differently within the Georgetown basketball program. The hirings of Esherick, JTIII, and Ewing are the most obvious testaments to that fact. On three separate occasions, Georgetown chose to hire someone with strong ties to the program rather than turning it over to an outsider. If and when the position of head coach becomes open, conducting a thorough and impartial coaching search is an absolute must. 

However, recent reports that Harvard’s Tommy Amaker is the leading candidate to fill a potential opening offers little assurance that the program is committed to doing things differently this time around. Not only has Amaker failed during previous stints coaching high major programs—he made just one NCAA Tournament in 10 combined years at Seton Hall and Michigan—but he was also a leading candidate to be the Hoyas’ coach before Ewing was hired in 2017. Hiring Amaker now would be lazy and a clear sign that those inside the program are not open to making the changes necessary to turn things around.

But the cultural reset that needs to happen on the Hilltop goes beyond the position of head coach. The offices inside the Thompson Center reek of nepotism and a mindless commitment to doing things the way they’ve been done for decades. A recent article from Hilltop Hoops revealed the influence that Ronny Thompson, son of John Thompson Jr., has behind the scenes of the program. While Ewing has shouldered the vast majority of the blame for the Hoyas’ collapse—and deservedly so—it’s clear that he was at least partially beholden to the whims of others within the program. Any potential new coaching hire must be afforded the liberty to do things their way without the oversight of Georgetown’s old guard.

 “It starts with previous generations that were in charge,” an anonymous member of the staff told Hilltop Hoops. “If that is still ingrained with how we operate things, we will not succeed.”

Amongst Hoya fans, there’s been a fair amount of discussion surrounding what all this change would mean for the legacy of the late great John Thompson Jr. Earlier this week, the guardian of a certain current Hoya (and former 5-star recruit), tweeted, “there’s a radical element [of the Georgetown fanbase] that wants to rid itself of the Thompson Legacy.” 

This is simply untrue. John Thompson Jr. will always be synonymous with Georgetown basketball, plain and simple. Even the student-athlete center on campus bears his name, an enduring tribute to the man who built the Georgetown brand from nothing to a household name.

But honoring Thompson’s legacy doesn’t mean clinging to the past. The nationally-recognized brand of Georgetown basketball that Thompson built is (maybe not so) slowly slipping away. Frankly, the Hoyas haven’t been nationally relevant in close to a decade. John Thompson Jr.’s legacy is Georgetown basketball. And the best way to honor that legacy is by rebuilding a program that Big John would be proud of.

Sure, the Georgetown brand is admittedly about more than just winning. I’m not arguing that the program should abandon everything that it stands for in pursuit of excellence on the court (looking at you, Hire Pitino folks). Regardless of who’s at the helm, it’s important to do things the right way. But during the peak of the Thompson era, the Hoyas sure did win a lot of basketball games.

Some have resigned to the fact that Georgetown may never make it back to the mountaintop of college hoops. I wouldn’t be writing this article if I subscribed to that line of thinking. There’s no doubt in my mind that a return to the upper echelons of the sport can be done.

But will it happen? That’s up to the university. 

After a stretch of irrelevance, the next few years are critical to shaping the future of Georgetown basketball. Regardless of who’s coaching the Hoyas next season, it can’t be business as usual on the Hilltop. 

Georgetown must boldly set course for a new future.