By now, most everyone knows about Georgetown’s defense. Whether it is in these very pages or national media outlets, the buzz about Georgetown’s D – which holds opponents to a nation-low field-goal percentage – is getting louder and louder.

But if the Hoyas are going to make another trip to the Final Four, the offense has got to get better. It doesn’t need to be quite as good as it was last year, when Georgetown was the nation’s second most efficient offensive team, according to Kenpom.com, but the Hoyas will need to play better than they are playing right now. Saturday’s game against Cincinnati was a good start, but with postseason play on the horizon, more consistent offensive production is a must, even with the stout defense.

Lest I continue telling you something most already know, here are three things, in no particular order, that would help our offense get back in shape:

1. DaJuan Summers needs to reorient his offensive game. Summers came to Georgetown with a reputation for being a good shooter, especially for a big guy, and he showed it for most of his freshman season. This year, however, his three-point shooting has seemed particularly off-the-mark. He’s shooting just 32.1 percent overall beyond the arc (down from 33.1, and he’s only taken 15 fewer shots this year than he did all of last year), and in his last five games, he’s 5-for-27 from deep. He’s missed his last 12 threes. And that is to say nothing of his form, which to me looks egregiously unorthodox (but I also couldn’t even make my middle-school basketball team, so I’ll give him a pass).

Now, from what I know about John Thompson III, he is not the kind of coach who tells a slumping player to stop shooting. When Jon Wallace was mired in a slump, Thompson often said that as long as Wallace was taking good shots, he’s got to keep throwing them up, and eventually they’ll start falling.

With Summers, though, it is different. For one, he is not nearly as good a pure shooter as Wallace. Secondly, many of Summer’s shots don’t seem to come within the flow of the offense. He takes too many shots early in the shot clock, and often when teammates are in better position to score. When the natural progression of the offense finds Summers wide open and no one else appears free, by all means, he should shoot the ball. But the three-pointer can not be the only weapon in his arsenal.

Ideally, Summers could turn to a midrange game, but many of the shots he’s taken this season from 8-10 feet have been way off line. That is something he needs to work on in practice. In games, Summers needs to drive the ball to the basket – he’s good at it. Against Cincinnati, he seemed adept at driving the baseline, sometimes with the ball, other times without it. If Summers starts doing that more against the zone, which, lets face it, is all Georgetown will see the rest of the year, he should find more offensive success.

2. Conversely, a more concerted effort needs to be made to get shots for Jon Wallace. With his shooting slump officially history, the best three-point shooter in school history needs to take more of the team’s shots. It seems that the Hoyas have already started moving in the right direction; before taking a measly four shots against the Bearcats, Wallace had three straight games of 10 shots or more.

Wallace is not Chris Lofton, the Tennessee sharpshooter who comes off picks like Reggie Miller, ready to fire immediately. He isn’t Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds, who shoots with sometimes-reckless abandon. But he also does not need to be a guy who only shoots when the ball happens to end up in his hands. Georgetown’s offense admittedly is not designed to get the ball to specific people; it is supposed to flow and find someone – anyone – with a good look. But they do need to look for Wallace more, possibly off of screens, as a shooter. Against a zone, when backdoor cuts are unlikely to be successful, Georgetown is going to need to take a lot of long-range shots. It’s inevitable, so they might as well work harder to get their best shooter taking them.

3. Lastly, and most obviously, the Hoyas must do a better job getting the ball to Roy Hibbert. It is no coincidence that in Georgetown’s worst two halves of the season – the second at Louisville and the first at Syracuse – Hibbert took a total of six shots. Not only is the 60-percent shooter the Hoyas’ most efficient offensive player, he is a deft passer, especially for a big man. Whether he’s catching the ball in the low post and taking his patented right-handed hook or receiving the ball at the top of the key and dishing to an open cutter, good things happen when the ball is in the Big Fella’s hands.

This team just does not do a great job of making that happen. Sometimes, it’s Hibbert’s own fault for not doing a good enough job to establish position. And granted, opposing zones really sag on Hibbert and often double- or even triple-team him. Keeping the ball away from Hibbert is most everyone’s top priority. (DePaul Coach Jerry Wainwright said he made a conscious decision to let Hibbert get his and focus on stopping the Hoyas’ shooters. Hibbert finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in Georgetown’s 16-point victory back in January.)

But all that said, the Hoyas still need to do a better job passing into the post. Sometimes, it looks like guys are too afraid of having the ball stolen to even try the pass. Other times, guys just don’t seem to try hard enough. The guards ought to try faking a lob and making a bounce pass.

Alternately, a play the Hoyas run for Vernon Macklin has him either set a pick – or receive a pass and make a handoff – at the top of the key, and then roll down towards the basket and receive the ball on the move. It’s worked pretty well – one instance even found its way into the pregame video. It is a variation of the same simple play Louisville used with David Padgett last month to exploit Georgetown. Hibbert isn’t quite as mobile as Macklin or Padgett, but he is a much bigger target. It might be worth a try.

Whatever they do, though, the Hoyas have to find a way to get the ball down low to Roy. When the offense runs through him, Georgetown is a different team – a team that looks like a national title contender. When the Hoyas are turned into a one-dimensional jump-shooting team, they look like the third- or fourth-best team in the Big East.

This has hardly been an exhaustive list. Austin Freeman needs to find his shot. Jeremiah Rivers needs to learn how to catch a pass. Patrick Ewing Jr. needs to do a better job picking his spots. Jessie Sapp must become a better finisher when he drives to the hoop. But for now, if DaJuan Summers refocuses his offensive game and Roy Hibbert and Jon Wallace find ways to shoot more, this team will become noticeably better.

Throw in an already formidable defense, and this team could actually be better than last year’s.

But they are not there yet.

Bailey Heaps is a junior in the College and the Web editor at THE HOYA. He can be reached at heapsthehoya.com. SPREADING THE FLOOR appears every other Tuesday in HOYA SPORTS.

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