Ewing-Thompson: The Sequel

And then?

"He skunked me. He just started backing me down. Me, I'm 16, 102 pounds soaking wet, so I couldn't do too much. But I always tell him, 'I did beat you that one time.' And he can't say he wasn't playing hard because he was."

Patrick Sr. laughed and said: "I got tired so I let him win that game. After that, I had to show him I'm still the man. I beat him outside, down low. I did it all. I let him know I run the show."

They have not played since, which is a good thing for Patrick Sr.

"He's old now," Little Pat said. "I'd hurt him."

Big Pat: "Uh, he might."

The other day, Patrick Jr. walked toward the same training room where his dad received treatment two decades ago. Bill Shapland, the school's senior sports communications director, is the person to whom his father made him say, "Hi, Mr. Shapland," while Patrick Sr. was working out during an NBA offseason.

McDonough has lots of stories like that. You half-expect Ray Liotta to come walking through the bleachers or James Earl Jones to talk about what the game means here. It's where Big John once informed a disconsolate Patrick Sr. that his mother had passed away.

He recently told Patrick Jr. how he got a first-generation Jamaican to come to Georgetown from frigid Boston.

" 'You know, to get your father here, I told him there was no snow in Washington,' " Big John remembers telling Little Pat. "And then winter came around and he said: 'What is this? I thought you said . . . ' Patrick Jr. laughed like hell at that one."

"Tying it all together," Big John added, "John being there, Patrick Jr. being there, the history, Patrick's mom passing, all those things, you do have some kind of emotional attachment to all that."