WASHINGTON (AP) — Patrick Ewing was fired as men’s basketball coach at Georgetown on Thursday after the latest in a series of rough seasons at the school he led to a national championship as a player in the 1980s.

The school announced that that it “has begun a national search for new leadership.”

Ewing was never a head coach at any level of the sport until getting the job with the Hoyas in 2017, and he leaves after a half-dozen years with a record of 75-109.

His last game was an 80-48 loss to Villanova on Wednesday night in the first round of the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden, the arena where Ewing was a star for the NBA’s New York Knicks for so many years.

Georgetown went 7-25 this season, including 2-18 in regular-season conference play, a schedule capped by a 40-point loss to Creighton. Ewing presided over a 29-game Big East losing streak that began in March 2021 and ended this January, the most consecutive defeats in league history.

The past two seasons were particularly poor: The Hoyas won a combined total of 13 games while losing 50, a winning percentage of .206.

Ewing’s tenure included only one winning season, zero victories in the NCAA Tournament and just one appearance in the Big Dance. It’s a far cry from the sort of success the program enjoyed when the 7-foot-tall Ewing was patrolling the paint as an intimidating, shot-blocking force at center decades ago.