Georgetown's 4-out 1-in Princeton Motion Offense

Most people when they think of a Princeton offense usually think of it being used by an under-sized and slower team that lacks talent. What would happen if a team with good size combined with great team speed and talent ran a Princeton-styled offense? Well, this year, you can watch Georgetown to see an elite team run a Princeton style offense, and the results speak for themselves.

The only real difference between Georgetown's offense and a traditional Princeton offense is that Roy Hibbert is usually posted up down low, so they usually show a 4-out look as opposed to a 5-out look. But they do go 5-out on occasion as you'll see in the video, but they are primarily in a 4-out set. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,



I've written about Navy's Princeton offense before, which is much more of a pure Princeton-based offense with the 5-out look. Georgetown's offense doesn't use as many give and go plays, but they use the backdoor cut extensively and upscreens for Hibbert to post-up down low.

4-out 1-in Princeton Motion:

They start out in a 4-out 1-in look. Roy Hibbert obviously is the 1-in. The first look is always Hibbert down low. Here he just does a simple cut across the lane. UConn's Hashim Thabeet does a great job in bumping Hibbert and forcing him a little higher than he would like to receive the ball.

After O1 passes to O2 on the wing, O1 goes to set an away screen for O4 coming from the corner. O3 waits for O1 to go thru, then does a v-cut and goes backdoor. O2 dribbles toward the top of the key, if he can, O2 gets it to O3 on the backdoor cut.

O3 clears thru to the opposite wing after the backdoor cut. O2 keeps dribbling meanwhle, O4 does a v-cut and goes backdoor. O1 comes from the corner to receive the pass on the wing from O2. After O2 passes to O1 on the wing, he goes to set a downscreen for Hibbert at the right elbow. Hibbert comes off the flex screen and the ball is reversed back again from O1 to Hibbert up top.

Hibbert passes it to O3 who comes up from the corner to fill the wing spot to complete the ball reversal. O2 now sets an upscreen for Hibbert who goes to the low block for a post-up.

O2 goes up top to fill the open top spot after the upscreen. O3 does a post-entry into Hibbert from the wing. After getting the ball in a good position, Hibbert makes a move to the inside and puts up a nice shot, misses, but tips it in himself.

Summary:

A few great things about their motion offense.

- Players are always in constant motion, and they use the backdoor cut extensively.
- Their spacing is tremendous, after they cut, they fill to open space. Hibbert has a lot of space to operate down low and the lane isn't congested with players.
- They use the ball reversal which forces the defense to shift and move, defenses typcially get lazy and reversing the ball from one side to another helps break them down.

There are plenty of notes on motion offense principles but I would highly recommend taking a look at coach John Carrier's notes, he does a great job breaking down the many options out of a 4-out 1-in, he's a guru of the offense. You can find them at the X's and O's Basketball forum. For video instruction, one video worth taking a look at for sure is Kevin Pigott's DVD on the Princeton offense. Coach Pigott really features the back door cut in the video.