Taking Stock of the 2020-21 Georgetown Hoyas
Ready or not, here comes Big East play. With four games under their belt, what have we learned about this Georgetown team?
With Georgetown now exiting the nonconference portion of its schedule (until their January 9th matchup against Syracuse) and entering the Big East slate of its schedule, we now have an idea of who the 2020-21 Georgetown Hoyas are and aren’t.
Sitting at 2-2, with wins against UMBC and Coppin State, and losses to West Virginia and Navy (ugh), the rebuilding Hoyas now head into Big East play with virtually no expectations, having been picked to finish last in the Big East Preseason Coaches Poll.
Here’s what we have learned about this team so far, after four games:
Turnovers Are This Team’s Achilles Heel
As if you needed any further explanation of why this is such an issue, the 26 turnovers that Georgetown committed on Tuesday night were a glaring sign of just how big of an problem this team’s carelessness with the ball is going to be this season.
Before the Coppin State, Georgetown gave up the following number of points off turnovers to its opponents in the last three games: 24 (UMBC), 19 (Navy), and West Virginia (21).
Frankly, it’s miraculous that Georgetown managed to wipe the floor with Coppin State last night despite committing that many turnovers. Against better teams like, say, Villanova on Friday night, this team will get crushed if it doesn’t do a better job of taking care of the ball.
Jalen Harris (32.7%), Don Carey (27.9%), and Timothy Ighoefe (27.6%) are the main culprits so far in contributing to this issue, in terms of turnover rate. On the other end of the spectrum, freshman point guard Dante Harris has the lowest turnover rate on the team, among rotation players, having committed only two turnovers in four games so far, which brings us to our next observation.
Does Georgetown Have a Point Guard Controversy On Its Hands? Should It?
While the younger Harris does not have the stats to show for it yet, the Tennessee native has showed promise in his first four games in a Georgetown uniform. Harris is decisive with the ball, plays with pace, and minimizes turnovers.
The same cannot be said so far for Arkansas grad transfer Jalen Harris, who despite being the starting point guard, leads the team in turnover rate.
In addition to that, Harris is 11th on the team in PER (7.6), 10th in effective field goal percentage (34.8%), and his assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.84 is ranked 236th among Division 1 basketball players right now. While his assist rate of 35.5% leads the team, his turnover rate of 32.7% nearly wipes that out, and is a concerning stat for the player who is supposed to orchestrate your offense.
While Dante Harris has not done enough - yet - to stake a legitimate claim to be this team’s starting point guard, if his arrow keeps ticking upward, and Jalen Harris continues to turn the ball over at this alarming rate, Patrick Ewing may need to consider making a change at the position, even if only to get a look at Dante’s potential to be this team’s point guard of the future.
Pickett, Blair, and Wahab Leading the Way
After a disappointing debut to their senior seasons, Jamorko Pickett and Jahvon Blair have rebounded in the following three games, and now lead the team in scoring average, with 14.3 points and 20.3 points per game, respectively.
Pickett, after scoring 19 points and pulling down 18 rebounds against Coppin State, looks to have snapped out of whatever funk he was in against UMBC to start the season. He is shooting 38.5% from three so far, which is a career-best mark for him right now, and is third in offensive rating among rotation players, at 100.2.
Not to be forgotten is sophomore center Qudus Wahab, who may not post crazy stats, but has quietly gotten off to a strong start in his second year as a Hoya, leading the team in Player Efficiency Rating.
Wahab also leads the team in effective field goal percentage, at 62.1%, and is averaging 1.8 blocks per game. He has actually been more valuable to the team on the offensive end of the floor, rather than the defensive end, which is an area he should improve on as the season goes on. Wahab has been in foul trouble in every game this season, and will need to get better in that aspect in order to take the next step in his development.
Free Throw-Shooting Fortunes Reversed
Last year, Georgetown was fifteenth in the country in free throw percentage, making 77.1% of their free throws. This year, however, that number has gone in the opposite direction, as they currently sit 238th in the country, at 63.5%.
Not only are they not knocking down their free throws, they’re not getting to the line all that much either. Georgetown is averaging 15.8 free throw attempts per game, which is 238th in the country right now. Last year, they averaged 20.4 attempts per game, which was 89th.
For a team that struggles to generate looks in the halfcourt, missing out on opportunities to pick up free points at the charity stripe is no way to win a game.
It will be interesting to see if the team’s free throw percentage improves on the road at all. The lighting in McDonough Arena is terrible, and while that’s a weak excuse considering they are the home team, it may still be contributing to their early-season woes from the free throw line.
Strong on the Boards
While this may be influenced by a small sample size that involves playing smaller teams, the numbers still have Georgetown as the seventh-best team in the country right now in total rebounds per game, averaging 48 per contest.
However, the Hoyas’ performance on the boards against a physically-imposing West Virginia Mountaineers team shows that their early showing on the boards may be no fluke.
Georgetown led in rebounding margin for much of the game against the Mountaineers, and finished the game tied in rebounding, at 43 apiece. It’s an encouraging showing that shows this team can compete with the best on the boards this season, which is a good thing, because they need all the extra possessions they can get.
Early Improvement on Defense
Last season, KenPom had Georgetown ranked 125th in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency, and so far this season, they are ranked 88th. Again, small sample size, but an encouraging early sign for a team that will take improvement of any size on defense, in Year 4 under Patrick Ewing.
Backup Center Position An Issue
Hopes were high for sophomore center Timothy Ighoefe heading into Year 2, as he garnered some positive reviews for his performance in practice before the season got underway. However, the improvement has yet to translate to the court, as Ighoefe has looked similarly lost on the court to start the season, like he did as a freshman.
Ighoefe is a prime example of a player who really would have benefitted from having a normal offseason to continue his development. His learning curve is steep, having been introduced to the game of basketball so late, and while his physical ability is off the charts (he leads the team in block percentage!), he still lacks understanding of the finer details of the game. Whether he can learn on the go this season remains to be seen.
Against Coppin State, Patrick Ewing sat Ighoefe, and instead turned to Chudier Bile at the center position in a smaller lineup. While the lineup had considerable success, and helped carry Georgetown to an easy win, Ewing said postgame that he hopes to not have to go back to that lineup, and intends to still use both of his bigs, Wahab and Ighoefe, moving forward. We’ll see how that goes.
Looking at Ighoefe’s page on the Sports Reference website to see if there is any justification for the bashing you guys keep laying on this kid. Unless its stats are in error I do not get your criticism. I may add that unless I was not paying attention carefully enough, I think some of your commentary on Ighoefe has been just short of hyperbole.
After the second darn game of the season one of you actually posed to Ewing the question of Ighoefe’s worthiness based on his having the worst plus-minus results of the Navy game. That was not only a disservice to Ighoefe (that stat did not tell the entire picture of his performance) it came across as a direct attack on Ewing’s intelligence as if he wasn’t properly gauging the worthiness of his player as well as you.
On your podcast you openly wished for Q to stay out of foul trouble for the very purpose of Ighoefe not getting as much playing time. A very eye-catching take considering how you are simultaneously craving reduction of minutes of the starters in general in order for other dudes to get court time.
Now you are salivating at the mouth over the idea of a small ball lineup, but only when Wahab is off the floor. This too keeps Ighoefe on the bench as much as possible.
It is as if the root of what ails the team, and what gnaws at you the most, are minutes given to Ighoefe.
I think more context us needed. Take the whole turnover rate numbers. According to Sports Reference Ighoefe has committed four turnovers in three games. Even in non-starter’s minutes that is not awful for a young big. Furthermore it is not that terrible when you consider Iggy has only turned it over once in his last two games. Three of his season’s four turnovers came in game one when admittedly he did look all sorts of lost. Those Turnovers weren’t the throwing bad passes or dribbling off the feet variety. They were the picking up a charge on a post move or setting an illegal screen variety.
From my vantage point he looked too wound up in that season opener but he has begun to settle down. He picked up zero fouls and turnovers in game 2. His initial non-dunk shot attempts were awful flicks that did not even touch the rim while his most recent ones were either close misses or made baskets.
The fouling issue is still a concern but he is a key contributor on the boards and he is also the best in-the-paint defender on the team. I do not get the rush to throw him overboard.