On the heels of a 15-18 season in 2015-16 and currently in the midst of a 10-10 campaign featuring a 1-6 record in conference play, the criticisms of Georgetown‘s offense far outweigh the viable solutions. Yes, the Hoyas do not have a true point guard, but their assist to field goal ratio (60.7%) ranks among the top 30 in college basketball. Sure, Georgetown is lacking in high volume shooters, but its three-point field goal percentage of 36.9 percent ranks in the top 100. John Thompson III‘s team might not be a very good defensive rebounding team this year, but the 28th-tallest team nationally did not simply forget how to rebound (the Hoyas were much better at cleaning the defensive glass last season). Is the Princeton offense broken? No, but without player buy-in, understanding, cohesiveness or whatever you want to call it, the pieces at Georgetown will not fit into the greater puzzle. Without good team chemistry and trust in the process, all those backcourt cuts that require a heavy reliance on spacing and timing will become a turnover-fueled hodgepodge. So, what are the Hoyas to do?

One of Thompson’s first initiatives in the offseason was to instill a faster offense — as a result, the Hoyas’ average length of possession this season has fallen from a middling 17.3 to a top-quintile 16.0 seconds. But this strategic shift hasn’t made Georgetown’s offense more efficient — it’s actually worse — and its transition rate of scoring is only marginally higher. In effect, the “faster pace” scheme can be distilled to “taking shots earlier in the shot clock,” which, if anything, runs against the overarching theory of finding the best shot. There’s nothing wrong with the way Georgetown’s lineup is constructed. It generates plenty of firepower from the backcourt, has floor-stretching, big wings, and experienced big men. The attack instead needs to be focused on improved shot selection and methods of scoring. Currently, as the above table shows, an outsized proportion of Hoyas’ offense comes from the free throw line (14th nationally). It’s a plausible strategy in theory, but it is also one that relies heavily on the whimsy of officiating. Read the rest of this entry »