Maximizing Potential in the Era of Patrick Ewing

[michaelgrahmstylie]

All right, guys, as many of you have realized by now, I am one of those people who like to look on the bright side of things. I, for one, believe that Pat is already getting our guys to play at a higher level than even they realized they were capable of playing at, ie, Derrickson, Govan, and Mulmore. We might even be able to add Johnson in the conversation, albeit the display of his talent can be sporadic at times.

The one thing that I have been impressed with, so far, is Ewing's ability to coach, speak directly to players, sharing how he believes in them, but also believes in their untapped abilities.

You know, it would have been easy for a coach, like Ewing, to come in, sit back in his comfortable chair on the sidelines and let this year just be a wash. Instead, he has come in, high flying, high expectations, and, most importantly, high on the horses he has in the barn. Pat is always coaching! And most remarkably, the players seem to always be listening, soaking in what this giant of man, an NBA veteran coach, a hall of famer is selling. The results: no real embarrassing games (be honest, many of us were expecting a slew of those.), our guys believing in themselves, competing night in and night out. Love it!

Of course it hurts to lose. No one likes to lose--or for that matter, even be called, or associated with losers. I believe that the single most important thing that has emerged in this young season is the coach's ability to get his players seeing beyond facts to the potential of this team.

[SSHoya]

Jan 14, 2018 11:37:16 GMT -5 michaelgrahmstylie said:

All right, guys, as many of you have realized by now, I am one of those people who like to look on the bright side of things. I, for one, believe that Pat is already getting our guys to play at a higher level than even they realized they were capable of playing at, ie, Derrickson, Govan, and Mulmore. We might even be able to add Johnson in the conversation, albeit the display of his talent can be sporadic at times.

The one thing that I have been impressed with, so far, is Ewing's ability to coach, speak directly to players, sharing how he believes in them, but also believes in their untapped abilities.

You know, it would have been easy for a coach, like Ewing, to come in, sit back in his comfortable chair on the sidelines and let this year just be a wash. Instead, he has come in, high flying, high expectations, and, most importantly, high on the horses he has in the barn. Pat is always coaching! And most remarkably, the players seem to always be listening, soaking in what this giant of man, an NBA veteran coach, a hall of famer is selling. The results: no real embarrassing games (be honest, many of us were expecting a slew of those.), our guys believing in themselves, competing night in and night out. Love it!

Of course it hurts to lose. No one likes to lose--or for that matter, even be called, or associated with losers. I believe that the single most important thing that has emerged in this young season is the coach's ability to get his players seeing beyond facts to the potential of this team.

Love your enthusiasm and agree with much of what you write but Creighton was an embarrassing game.

[bamahoya11]

I would describe Ewing's first year so far as "meeting expectations" in that he has been able to win every single game he should have won and has lost to all of the teams that the odds would more or less expect him to lose to. This season has gone slightly better than I expected. Even with the weak OOC schedule, I thought a decent and well coached small team like Mt. St. Mary's or North Texas might knock us off. They didn't even come particularly close. I do think some fans on this board underestimate the difficulty of beating all those little teams, and we did it. Nonetheless, I consider it an "expectation" to beat those schools.

In league play, Ewing has similarly managed to beat both DePaul and St. John's on the road and has lost to everyone else. My hope going forward in league play is that we will beat DePaul and St. John's in Washington, and then either beat Marquette in Washington and split with Providence or lose to Marquette and beat Providence twice. That would give us 6 league wins, a one-game improvement from last season. That's basically my expectation the rest of the way. I think we are about as good as Providence, St. John's, and DePaul, and good enough to split with Marquette. If Ewing managed to sweep Provy and get Marquette, we would end up with 7 wins. Do those things, get 6 or 7 wins and then win an opening day game in the BET as a 7 or 8 seed, and I would consider that a solid first campaign for Ewing. Maybe it's not flashy, but it would show that we aren't at the bottom of the league either.

I would be genuinely surprised and impressed if we beat anyone else. I do think it's possible, but I'm not banking on it. For a real upset prospect, I'll be watching for Seton Hall in DC in a couple weeks and our game at Butler. I doubt we will knock of Villanova, Xavier, or Creighton. If we win any of those games, it will be a remarkable upset.

So, where does this leave us? I don't think we know much about Ewing from this first year. There are some positives-- at least so far, he has kept the season from hitting rock bottom. Back in April, I thought a 7-8 win season was a possibility. In that connection, Ewing has also had a much better first year at Georgetown than Mullin had at St. John's. I think Derrickson and Govan have made strides under Ewing, but I think most of the other players seem pretty stagnant. I also think Pickett has regressed a bit over the course of league play. But this team has a long way to go. We knew that all along.

Ultimately, the Ewing era will be defined by how we do against the teams we can't beat this year. Can we beat teams like Creighton, Xavier, and Butler regularly and make a run at Villanova? I think that's the expectation at Georgetown in a long term sense-- a top 4 program in the league. It will be impressive to beat Providence or Marquette this year, but over the long term I think most fans expect more. I have no idea yet whether Ewing can beat those teams consistently. I don't think we will know for 3-5 years and we have seen him bring in recruits who run his system and then watched him rebuild after some of those initial players graduate or move on. We certainly wouldn't know from this season.

Going forward this year, I plan to pay attention to the games we should win or be competitive in. We should beat Providence at least once. We should at least give Marquette a strong game. We should beat DePaul and St. John's again. Winning those games certainly shows me that Ewing can coach-- that's getting the most out of what he has. Beyond that, I would love to see us pull a pure upset, somewhere along the way. It won't change this year, but it'd be a welcome bright spot over the last few. Beyond that, he just needs to keep plugging away and hitting the recruiting trail hard.

[drquigley]

Jan 14, 2018 14:20:04 GMT -5 bamahoya11 said:

I would describe Ewing's first year so far as "meeting expectations" in that he has been able to win every single game he should have won and has lost to all of the teams that the odds would more or less expect him to lose to. This season has gone slightly better than I expected. Even with the weak OOC schedule, I thought a decent and well coached small team like Mt. St. Mary's or North Texas might knock us off. They didn't even come particularly close. I do think some fans on this board underestimate the difficulty of beating all those little teams, and we did it. Nonetheless, I consider it an "expectation" to beat those schools.

In league play, Ewing has similarly managed to beat both DePaul and St. John's on the road and has lost to everyone else. My hope going forward in league play is that we will beat DePaul and St. John's in Washington, and then either beat Marquette in Washington and split with Providence or lose to Marquette and beat Providence twice. That would give us 6 league wins, a one-game improvement from last season. That's basically my expectation the rest of the way. I think we are about as good as Providence, St. John's, and DePaul, and good enough to split with Marquette. If Ewing managed to sweep Provy and get Marquette, we would end up with 7 wins. Do those things, get 6 or 7 wins and then win an opening day game in the BET as a 7 or 8 seed, and I would consider that a solid first campaign for Ewing. Maybe it's not flashy, but it would show that we aren't at the bottom of the league either.

I would be genuinely surprised and impressed if we beat anyone else. I do think it's possible, but I'm not banking on it. For a real upset prospect, I'll be watching for Seton Hall in DC in a couple weeks and our game at Butler. I doubt we will knock of Villanova, Xavier, or Creighton. If we win any of those games, it will be a remarkable upset.

So, where does this leave us? I don't think we know much about Ewing from this first year. There are some positives-- at least so far, he has kept the season from hitting rock bottom. Back in April, I thought a 7-8 win season was a possibility. In that connection, Ewing has also had a much better first year at Georgetown than Mullin had at St. John's. I think Derrickson and Govan have made strides under Ewing, but I think most of the other players seem pretty stagnant. I also think Pickett has regressed a bit over the course of league play. But this team has a long way to go. We knew that all along.

Ultimately, the Ewing era will be defined by how we do against the teams we can't beat this year. Can we beat teams like Creighton, Xavier, and Butler regularly and make a run at Villanova? I think that's the expectation at Georgetown in a long term sense-- a top 4 program in the league. It will be impressive to beat Providence or Marquette this year, but over the long term I think most fans expect more. I have no idea yet whether Ewing can beat those teams consistently. I don't think we will know for 3-5 years and we have seen him bring in recruits who run his system and then watched him rebuild after some of those initial players graduate or move on. We certainly wouldn't know from this season.

Going forward this year, I plan to pay attention to the games we should win or be competitive in. We should beat Providence at least once. We should at least give Marquette a strong game. We should beat DePaul and St. John's again. Winning those games certainly shows me that Ewing can coach-- that's getting the most out of what he has. Beyond that, I would love to see us pull a pure upset, somewhere along the way. It won't change this year, but it'd be a welcome bright spot over the last few. Beyond that, he just needs to keep plugging away and hitting the recruiting trail hard.

My feelings exactly. I posted in other threads that we have "could win" games and "nice to win" games. PE is doing great on the could win games and ideally will pull an upset in a nice to win game. Also, don't forget the propaganda value of an upset. Gotta keep the program on recruits radar.

[vv83]

It seemed like yesterday Ewing got some good press from the college hoops media. Rothstein and someone else (don't remember who) both tweeted that while the Hoyas are a bit short on talent, they are very well coached. That might be about the best kind of media/broader public perception we can reasonably hope for this season, unless we pull off a real upset of Nova/Xavier.

[michaelgrahmstylie]

Jan 14, 2018 14:20:04 GMT -5 bamahoya11 said:

I would describe Ewing's first year so far as "meeting expectations" in that he has been able to win every single game he should have won and has lost to all of the teams that the odds would more or less expect him to lose to. This season has gone slightly better than I expected. Even with the weak OOC schedule, I thought a decent and well coached small team like Mt. St. Mary's or North Texas might knock us off. They didn't even come particularly close. I do think some fans on this board underestimate the difficulty of beating all those little teams, and we did it. Nonetheless, I consider it an "expectation" to beat those schools.

In league play, Ewing has similarly managed to beat both DePaul and St. John's on the road and has lost to everyone else. My hope going forward in league play is that we will beat DePaul and St. John's in Washington, and then either beat Marquette in Washington and split with Providence or lose to Marquette and beat Providence twice. That would give us 6 league wins, a one-game improvement from last season. That's basically my expectation the rest of the way. I think we are about as good as Providence, St. John's, and DePaul, and good enough to split with Marquette. If Ewing managed to sweep Provy and get Marquette, we would end up with 7 wins. Do those things, get 6 or 7 wins and then win an opening day game in the BET as a 7 or 8 seed, and I would consider that a solid first campaign for Ewing. Maybe it's not flashy, but it would show that we aren't at the bottom of the league either.

I would be genuinely surprised and impressed if we beat anyone else. I do think it's possible, but I'm not banking on it. For a real upset prospect, I'll be watching for Seton Hall in DC in a couple weeks and our game at Butler. I doubt we will knock of Villanova, Xavier, or Creighton. If we win any of those games, it will be a remarkable upset.

So, where does this leave us? I don't think we know much about Ewing from this first year. There are some positives-- at least so far, he has kept the season from hitting rock bottom. Back in April, I thought a 7-8 win season was a possibility. In that connection, Ewing has also had a much better first year at Georgetown than Mullin had at St. John's. I think Derrickson and Govan have made strides under Ewing, but I think most of the other players seem pretty stagnant. I also think Pickett has regressed a bit over the course of league play. But this team has a long way to go. We knew that all along.

Ultimately, the Ewing era will be defined by how we do against the teams we can't beat this year. Can we beat teams like Creighton, Xavier, and Butler regularly and make a run at Villanova? I think that's the expectation at Georgetown in a long term sense-- a top 4 program in the league. It will be impressive to beat Providence or Marquette this year, but over the long term I think most fans expect more. I have no idea yet whether Ewing can beat those teams consistently. I don't think we will know for 3-5 years and we have seen him bring in recruits who run his system and then watched him rebuild after some of those initial players graduate or move on. We certainly wouldn't know from this season.

Going forward this year, I plan to pay attention to the games we should win or be competitive in. We should beat Providence at least once. We should at least give Marquette a strong game. We should beat DePaul and St. John's again. Winning those games certainly shows me that Ewing can coach-- that's getting the most out of what he has. Beyond that, I would love to see us pull a pure upset, somewhere along the way. It won't change this year, but it'd be a welcome bright spot over the last few. Beyond that, he just needs to keep plugging away and hitting the recruiting trail hard.

I would agree. However, you must agree, it could have been worst. We did beat St Johns on the road. Yes, Creighton was a bit of an embarrassment, but keep in mind they probably would have bat anybody in the nation shooting and clicking on all cylinders the way they were that day. I did get a little bit of a kick out watching Marquette give them a taste of their own medicine last night, blowing them out by almost 30.

[Bigs"R"Us]

This team has limited talent- not Pat's fault. He is out there busting his butt on the recruiting trail- something that hasn't occurred in a long time. Recruiting is everything, so he has exceeded my expectations.

[michaelgrahmstylie]

Jan 14, 2018 20:43:17 GMT -5 Bigs"R"Us said:

This team has limited talent- not Pat's fault. He is out there busting his butt on the recruiting trail- something that hasn't occurred in a long time. Recruiting is everything, so he has exceeded my expectations.

Couldn't agree more. Not only is he recruiting though, in my opinion, he is busting his butt coaching up his current young players. To tell you the truth, I never realized Pat Ewing was this intense.

[JohnnyJones]

Jan 14, 2018 20:43:17 GMT -5 Bigs"R"Us said:

This team has limited talent- not Pat's fault. He is out there busting his butt on the recruiting trail- something that hasn't occurred in a long time. Recruiting is everything, so he has exceeded my expectations.

Just curious - do you have factual evidence to back up the claim that the current staff is working harder than the prior one in terms of recruiting?

[the_way]

Jan 14, 2018 21:06:37 GMT -5 michaelgrahmstylie said:

Jan 14, 2018 20:43:17 GMT -5 Bigs"R"Us said:

This team has limited talent- not Pat's fault. He is out there busting his butt on the recruiting trail- something that hasn't occurred in a long time. Recruiting is everything, so he has exceeded my expectations.

Couldn't agree more. Not only is he recruiting though, in my opinion, he is busting his butt coaching up his current young players. To tell you the truth, I never realized Pat Ewing was this intense.

He is and he is focused and humble. 15 years as an assistant tells you all you need to know about Ewing. With all his accomplishments as a player, he literally worked his way up and paid his dues like any other assistant coach. Mullin was the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for Golden State at one point. Steve Kerr the GM for the Phoenix Suns. Ewing? He toiled away for years as an assistant with no such offers and didn't complain. He worked on his craft.

Diligence, patience, and preparation. That is Patrick Ewing.

You can see it how he deals with his players and their playing time. He gives them a chance and will hang in there with them. Let them play through their mistakes.

Right now, we look like a well-coached team.

On offense, we seem to get the shots that we want. The lack of talent is why we don't hit the shots. Our offense looks fluid. Saw it during the very first game against Jacksonville. I was shocked.

Look what he landed with recruiting in such a short-span after his hiring.

Defensively, I'm curious to see how he will continue to approach things once he builds more depth on the roster.

Sure, you see some rookie mistakes with timeouts,some substiutions, defensive calls, but for the most part...very pleased with how we look.

[michaelgrahmstylie]

Jan 14, 2018 21:42:52 GMT -5 the_way said:

Jan 14, 2018 21:06:37 GMT -5 michaelgrahmstylie said:

Couldn't agree more. Not only is he recruiting though, in my opinion, he is busting his butt coaching up his current young players. To tell you the truth, I never realized Pat Ewing was this intense.

He is and he is focused and humble. 15 years as an assistant tells you all you need to know about Ewing. With all his accomplishments as a player, he literally worked his way up and paid his dues like any other assistant coach. Mullin was the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for Golden State at one point. Steve Kerr the GM for the Phoenix Suns. Ewing? He toiled away for years as an assistant with no such offers and didn't complain. He worked on his craft.

Diligence, patience, and preparation. That is Patrick Ewing.

You can see it how he deals with his players and their playing time. He gives them a chance and will hang in there with them. Let them play through their mistakes.

Right now, we look like a well-coached team.

On offense, we seem to get the shots that we want. The lack of talent is why we don't hit the shots. Our offense looks fluid. Saw it during the very first game against Jacksonville. I was shocked.

Look what he landed with recruiting in such a short-span after his hiring.

Defensively, I'm curious to see how he will continue to approach things once he builds more depth on the roster.

Sure, you see some rookie mistakes with timeouts,some substiutions, defensive calls, but for the most part...very pleased with how we look.

Great insights! Like the way you think, Bro!

[michaelgrahmstylie]

LOL

Almost the day after, this:

www.washingtonian.com/2018/01/14/the-passion-of-patrick-ewing-georgetown-basketball-ncaa/

[michaelgrahmstylie]

Just loving it!

Judging from his demeanor, Ewing seems well aware of the stakes. His old freshman dorm, a cluster of apartments overlooking the Potomac River, is a five-minute walk from his office, but he’s yet to pay a visit: “I’m in grind mode. I’m in recruiting mode. I’m trying to get the guys to do the things we need them to do to be successful. I’m so busy with the job that I really don’t have time to sit back and be nostalgic.”

[DFW HOYA]

Jan 15, 2018 11:16:17 GMT -5 michaelgrahmstylie said:

LOL

Almost the day after, this:

www.washingtonian.com/2018/01/14/the-passion-of-patrick-ewing-georgetown-basketball-ncaa/

Any idea when the photo was taken? Chris Sodom is nowhere to be seen.

[DanMcQ]

It’s like the old days in the USSR: he has been disappeared.

[njhoya78]

Jan 15, 2018 15:36:09 GMT -5 DanMcQ said:

It’s like the old days in the USSR: he has been disappeared.

I believe that, instead of a potted tree, Sodom was replaced in the photo by a sax.

[FrazierFanatic]

Jan 15, 2018 16:26:58 GMT -5 njhoya78 said:

Jan 15, 2018 15:36:09 GMT -5 DanMcQ said:

It’s like the old days in the USSR: he has been disappeared.

I believe that, instead of a potted tree, Sodom was replaced in the photo by a sax.

Who wants to sax Sodom??

[michaelgrahmstylie]

Had yo dig this one out of the closet. Ewing certainly has got the ship sailing in the right direction.

And once again, no, Ewing and I are not related.