Like any person with a high-profile new job, Patrick Ewing is eager to make a good impression.

And so it was that Ewing, the former Knicks All-Star who on Monday was named Georgetown’s new basketball coach, came to be on a national radio show on Thursday. He talked about his hiring and he boasted about the type of immediate impact he hoped to make on recruits — and promptly proposed contact with a high school player that would be an N.C.A.A. recruiting violation.

Whether Ewing turns out to be a successful head coach remains to be seen. But his misstep in one of his first days in the post pointed out the steep learning curve he will face in transitioning from the N.B.A., where he spent the last three decades as a player and assistant coach, to college, which plays by a different — and extensive — set of rules.

In the comment on Thursday, Ewing, in a guest appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” told the host that he hoped to get another former Georgetown great, Allen Iverson, involved in recruiting, specifically with a certain player. And although Ewing did not mention that player by name, his description matched Tremont Waters, a 5-foot-9 senior point guard from Notre Dame High School in Connecticut who had signed with Georgetown under the former coach, John Thompson III, but then requested his release before Thompson was fired — and received it this week.

“I’m not sure if he will be on the staff but he’s always welcome,” Ewing said of Iverson. “I’m going to use him every way I can. There’s a kid down there in Connecticut who’s a big fan of his, who he committed to come to Georgetown, but when JT3 got let go he wanted us to release him. I know he’s a big Allen Iverson fan, but at some point I’m going to try to get him and Allen together, either on the phone or in person.”