Film Review: What Went Wrong?

After an ugly 69-60 loss against Dartmouth, it's time to take a look at the film to see what went wrong for Georgetown on Saturday afternoon.

In order to lose to the 288th-ranked team according to KenPom, a lot of things have to go wrong for you to get to that point. Unfortunately for Georgetown, that’s what happened on Saturday afternoon, as they allowed Dartmouth to coast to a rather easy 69-60 win.

The Hoyas don’t have much time to correct their mistakes, as they host American University on Tuesday night. It’s still worth going back to look at the film and see what trends popped up on the film. Here’s what I saw after watching the TV replay.

Shot Selection and Shot Mechanics An Issue for Harris

Perhaps the biggest story of the game for Georgetown was the struggles of sophomore point guard Dante Harris, who shot 3-of-13 from the field and looked all out of sorts. Harris was rushing shots, overhelping on defense, and had a weird new hitch in his shot that requires immediate attention. Basically, it looked like he had jitters in his first game in front of a home crowd at Capital One Arena.

It felt like Harris was trying to do it all by himself in this game. While there are certainly a lot of expectations for him this season, he is going to have to trust his teammates more going forward, rather than attempting ill-advised 18-foot runners like above.

Here again, Harris gets downhill— which is good!— but he bites off more than he can chew, attempting a shot with two defenders on him at the rim.

Malcolm Wilson’s defender comes off Wilson to provide help on Harris at the rim, and Harris tries to go over Nate Ogbu for the bucket, something that is not part of his game yet. Harris, who is listed at 6’0”, does not have the size or strength yet to take on double teams at the rim and score over taller defenders.

This shot was perhaps the most concerning one of the game for Harris. Aminu Mohammed makes the correct read here, kicking it to Harris when Harris’ defender, Taurus Samuels, helps off him too much. Harris takes the three-pointer, but his form is all out of sync, and he takes a weird hop at the end, like he knows the shot didn’t feel right.

Same hop after the shot here in the second half, on another missed three-pointer. Harris did not look confident in his three-point shot at all in this game, and his form was off for most of the game…

…Until the end, when Harris and Georgetown were trying to make this a game again.

THIS play was a play that Dante Harris, Big East Tournament MOP, made last year. He shakes his defender with a stutter dribble-crossover combo, and confidently pulls up for the long two-pointer. Here, his lower body is much more in-sync with his upper body, and the result is a clean shot that goes in, no problem.

Weakside Screen Actions

Georgetown’s defense was a mess throughout this game, except to start the second half, where they were much more locked in and communicative. That focus seemed to slip again after the first eight or so minutes of the second half.

Dartmouth shot 16-of-38 from the three-point line, and Georgetown’s lapses in concentration and execution were largely to blame for that high number of three-point attempts.

In particular, Dartmouth took advantage of Georgetown on the weakside, using off-ball screens to catch ball-watching Georgetown defenders napping. Sometimes, they didn’t even need to set a screen because the Georgetown defender was so far into the paint already, his man didn’t need a pick to get free.

Take a look here. Jalin Billingsley is so far off his man in the corner that Dartmouth’s Ryan Cornish doesn’t even need to set a down screen on Billingsley to free up Aaryn Rai for the three-point attempt. Billingsley wasn’t the only Georgetown player that didn’t keep his head on a swivel in this game; a lot of Hoyas were ball-watching throughout.

Here, Dartmouth gets the Georgetown D scrambling again, when Don Carey gets caught with his eyes on the ball in the high post, leaving Brendan Barry to get free on the right wing as Garrison Wade runs up to screen an unsuspecting Carey.

Jalin Billingsley deserves some blame here too for this play. He needs to be louder with Carey and alert him to the screen if Carey is going to peek at the ball like he did on this play. Instead, Barry gets the ball, drives on a late-to-recover Carey, and kicks it back out to Wade after Barry drew help at the rim. Luckily for Georgetown, Wade missed the layup.

This play was a head-scratcher. Again, more weakside screens, this time on Dante Harris. Harris doesn’t help matters though, because he seems to see the pick and still decides to run right into it, rather than run in a straight line out to Barry.

The guess here is that Harris expected Barry to slide along the perimeter closer to the pass, and was moving in that direction in anticipation. But still, he guesses wrong and runs right into the pick and is too late getting out to Barry before he gets off his shot, and fouls him to compound his mistake.

Overhelping

Georgetown’s defense was way too antsy in this one. While we can’t say if this was an instruction from the coaching staff to help this aggressively or not, it’s hard to believe it would be, because it left a lot of Dartmouth shooters free on the perimeter to take an open shot.

A big time “don’t” in basketball is to not help one pass way. That’s because it leaves a simple pass for the player with the ball to make to an open shooter nearby on the perimeter.

Georgetown helped one pass away far too much in this game, like in the above play, and they paid a costly price for it. The team needs to trust that its rim protectors will be at the rim to provide help, because Dante Harris is not helping anyone out sliding in like he does here. Jordan Riley was still with his man at the time Harris decided to slide too. It was not necessary.

Here, Aminu Mohammed is late getting out to a driving Aaryn Rai on the perimeter, and compounds his mistake when he helps his help, Harris, on Rai, instead of switching out and taking Harris’ man, Brendan Barry, who moved out to the perimeter and got a wide open three as a result of Mohammed doubling Rai in the paint. We’ll chalk this one up to a freshman mistake.

One more example for good measure. Why is Don Carey helping Mohammed this much when Malcolm Wilson is right there to deter any drive into the paint? It’s completely unnecessary, and leads to yet another open Dartmouth three-point attempt.

Defensive Struggles for Rice

Kaiden Rice’s defensive numbers during his time at the Citadel were, to put it kindly, not great, and his performance on that end of the floor in his Georgetown debut was less than ideal.

Rice was caught flat-footed on defense several times in this game, and didn’t do a great job of keeping the ball in front of him on defense. Surely, that’s something that the coaching staff will address in the coming days, because Rice is going to find himself in Ewing’s doghouse sooner rather than later if plays like this continue.

Rice is an excellent three-point shooter and the Hoyas will definitely need him out there to get their offense going, but for him to stay on the floor and become a key contributor this year, Rice has to learn to stay in front of his man better on defense.