Patrick Ewing Reportedly 'Major Candidate' for Georgetown Basketball Head Coach

Former NBA superstar and current Charlotte Hornets associate head coach Patrick Ewing has "emerged as [a] major candidate" for the head coach position at Georgetown, according to Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports.

Ewing reportedly has interviewed with the school several times and would be the choice of legendary former coach John Thompson Jr. Ewing will have a formal meeting with the school on Monday, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, who added Ewing has been identifying possible "high-level" candidates to fill out his coaching staff.

Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy—who had Ewing on his staff when he was with the Orlando Magic—believes Ewing is the perfect fit for Georgetown, per Ian Begley of ESPN.com:

But as Wojnarowski noted March 24, Ewing's goal has been to become a head coach at the NBA level.

Perhaps a chance to return to his alma mater and bring the program back to prominence will be enough to entice him to the college game.

The Hoyas fired John Thompson III in March after the team went 15-18 and 14-18 in the last two seasons. Thompson was 278-151 at Georgetown and reached the Final Four in the 2006-07 season. He never equaled the success of his father, however, who famously led the Hoyas to the national title in the 1983-84 season and made two other Final Four appearances.

Georgetown has cast a wide net in its search, reportedly reaching out to Notre Dame's Mike Brey and Texas' Shaka Smart, per Gary Parrish of CBS Sports. The coaches rebuffed the overtures.

The Hoyas also "put out strong feelers to Xavier's Chris Mack at $4 million per year," according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com, but Mack said he'd remain at Xavier.

And Adam Zagoria of the 4 Quarters Podcast noted Harvard's Tommy Amaker was one of Georgetown's top options.