When Patrick Ewing was coming up in the early 1990’s, no one fully understood how good he was. There was no YouTube, no social media, no clips, no hype tapes.
People knew he was going to be good, but no
one understood just how good.
When Ewing got to Georgetown, they figured it out in a big hurry. Ewing was, in Cliff Ellis’s old phrase, agile, hostile and mobile.
He had been compared to Bill Russell, but Ewing was bigger, stronger and possibly faster, though Russell might have argued that.
As a freshman, Ewing was a superb defender. He ran the court like a much smaller man and could catch guards on breaks.
In the 1982 NCAA championship game, Ewing was again hugely dominant, but he ran into another freshman that would become legendary in Michael Jordan.
He would have to wait two more years to win his own championship, but as you’ll see in these highlights, he was incredibly intimidating. Ewing was a rare combination of speed, strength, endurance and intelligence in a basketball player.
His final year and final game saw a shocking upset as Villanova played a nearly perfect game to upset the Hoyas, and did so while Gary McLain was coked up as he later admitted.
Nonetheless, Ewing was the force that defined that era. He was a spectacular talent and he stayed for four years, battling Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon along the way. We’ll never see that again.
