Georgetown coaching candidates: Could Rick Pitino or Kevin Keatts replace Patrick Ewing?

Georgetown, understandably, has been beholden to its own history. It is a great history. It is a groundbreaking history. It is a history of helping to define men’s college basketball for a very long time. It does not have to forget that history.

It does have to prioritize the future. That necessarily means a reboot, a slate wiped clean and then wiped clean again, with zero sentiment involved. Patrick Ewing should be the last physical link to John Thompson II and the Georgetown men’s hoops coach chair, after his dismissal Thursday. Change is long past due, but it’s due nonetheless.

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This is a delicate thing. Might even require some institutional courage. But the freefall in on-court results should make it an easy enough sell for athletic director Lee Reed and the rest of the school’s decision-makers. After all, Big John would want Georgetown to win. And win big. The only way it can achieve that is with a clear-eyed pursuit of something new.

Job evaluation

Georgetown basketball has championship potential. The recent results don’t change that. It is the sport at the core of the school’s athletic identity. The top priority. Georgetown reported north of $14 million in men’s basketball expenses in 2019-20, according to U.S. Department of Education figures. It’s not a spare-no-expense number in the same spending stratosphere of Kentucky … but it’s $2 million more than North Carolina spent in the same period. The want-to is there.

The local recruiting turf teems with talent, which mitigates whatever devaluation of the brand has occurred lately; there are plenty of good players who know about Georgetown men’s basketball. And if the program can build some momentum, there’s at least the possibility it can renew its visibility on a national level. Which means, in theory, a coach can pursue whoever he wants. It’s the ideal scenario, yes, and a long way off from where Georgetown is now. But it’s plausible.

GO DEEPER

Patrick Ewing won't say it. Neither will Georgetown. But this feels like the end

The advantages are real. How connected and competent the leadership is – well, that’s something any candidate will have to assess. But if Reed is leading the charge on the hire and has the latitude to do a proper reboot, then alignment should work itself out. Anyone he hires will understand it’s a partnership.

It’s a very, very large hole Georgetown has dug itself. That is no small problem in a Big East that continues to add high-quality coaches. But it has the means to climb out.

Call list

(in alphabetical order)

Kevin Keatts, NC State head coach. This would be both sides striking at the right time, with Keatts winning his way off the hot seat in Raleigh and Georgetown capitalizing on a coach who just presided over a 12-win improvement season-to-season. The school would have to be ready to go well north of $3 million per year to make it happen.

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Mike Jones, Virginia Tech associate head coach. You want a shot at turning the DMV talent pipeline into a raging river? Hire the guy who spent almost two decades at DeMatha Catholic High School. Add in years spent on the same bench as Mike Young, and Georgetown can be confident Jones is prepared. He also probably comes cheaper than some of the other higher-profile candidates, if the Ewing buyout has thinned out the coffers.

Matt Langel, Colgate head coach. It would be a fairly aggressive swing and swerve, but not without merit. It’ll be four straight NCAA Tournament appearances for Colgate – in years in which the tournament was actually played – and it’s about as fresh a set of eyes as you can imagine. Plus, Langel has beaten Syracuse two years running. That still has to count for something at Georgetown.

Rick Pitino, Iona head coach. There is no doubt Pitino wants one more crack at a big job. There is no doubt he would consider Georgetown a big job. Whether Georgetown sees it as a fit, on multiple levels, is another thing. But the wins would follow. They always do.

Micah Shrewsberry, Penn State head coach. The Nittany Lions have been a bit mercurial in Shrewsberry’s second year, but they may well reach the NCAA Tournament regardless. He has the player-development mindset that would fit the place well. Would he leave a Big Ten job for Georgetown? You’d think, given the relative ceilings of both programs, he’d leave this Big Ten job for Georgetown.

Rodney Terry, Texas acting head coach. He earned Big 12 Coach of the Year honors, but it’s still not clear that he’ll earn the permanent job. There’s plenty of chatter out there about Chris Del Conte thinking bigger. But a defensive-minded coach who’s obsessed with recruiting? That could play here.

The hire is…

Do it, Georgetown. Shake up the world. Hire Rick Pitino.

(Top photo of Rick Pitino: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)

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