box score
audio - coach john thompson III, jessie sapp & roy hibbert
audio - roy hibbert
audio - jonathan wallace
audio - john thompson III (about Jumpman commercial)
One minute into Georgetown's Big East semifinal matchup with West Virginia, Hoya center Roy Hibbert picked up an offensive foul giving a shoulder to his defender in the post. After going scoreless in 14 minutes of play before fouling out against Villanova on Thursday afternoon, was Hibbert in for another long game?
"For a little second I was like 'aw man,'" admitted the 7'2" Hibbert, "but the coaches tell me to go out there and play my game."
Hibbert blocked a Darris Nichols jumper on the Mountaineers' next offensive possession to establish himself on defense and threw down a carom of DaJuan Summers' missed three pointer with his right hand on the weakside to announce his return on offense. It was the start of a season-high 25 point, 13 rebound performance that pushed Georgetown into the Big East tournament finals against Pittsburgh with a 72-55 victory.
10 of Hibbert's rebounds came on the offensive end.
"That putback dunk really set the tone for the game," acknowledged Hibbert.
It was a long 29 hours between games for Hibbert, as everyone with his cell phone number and email address reached out to give him unsolicited advice. "So many people were telling me I needed to pick it up. I got phone calls from former coaches and [former Hoya teammate] Jeff Green," said Hibbert.
Green's advice, sent via instant messenger, was simple - "You know what you have to do."
Hibbert did it all.
He stepped behind a screen to size up the third three point shot of his career in as many attempts to give the Hoyas a 10-5 lead. One possession later Patrick Ewing, Jr found Hibbert inside for a one-handed flush.
Hibbert cleaned up a missed jumper by Chris Wright for two more and Wright located Hibbert alone under the basket in transition for the dunk the very next time the Hoyas had the ball.
Jessie Sapp drove the left side of the lane and scored as Hibbert cleared out space for his teammate. West Virginia called time down 22-14 with 6:45 left in the half.
The lead reached a game-high 13 with Hibbert on the bench. Austin Freeman's no-look pass to backup center Vernon Macklin in the post was emphatically sent home.
Ewing drew the attention of the Mountaineer defense and passed off to Macklin who scored while being fouled.
DaJuan Summers' three point shot set up by a Ewing pass to the right wing finished the first half scoring as Georgetown headed into their locker room up 33-21. Hibbert had 13 points before the break.
Jessie Sapp admitted after the game that while he expected Hibbert to bounce back on Friday night, he was still surprised. "I didn't expect this big of a game. He did very well today. I knew he was going to come out hungry, so we wanted to feed him. We wanted to keep feeding him and feeding him."
Joe Alexander, who went for 34 points on Thursday in West Virginia's win over UConn, was limited to 5-16 shooting against Georgetown. The Hoyas sent a variety of different players at Alexander on defense, never letting him get comfortable and creating an assortment of looks for Alexander to try and navigate.
The second half started at a much faster pace. West Virginia began to heat up from outside and some lax defense on the perimeter allowed the Mountaineers to trade three-for-two on multiple possessions.
Despite scoring five of the first seven times they had the ball out of the break Georgetown's 12 point lead was cut to six as West Virginia made four triples in the first five minutes of the second half.
Alex Ruoff's third deep dagger of the frame made the score 49-45 Hoyas with 12:16 left to play.
"I don't care about the pace. They scored too much," said Georgetown coach John Thompson III. We didn't get stops at the start of the second half. Once we started to get stops, everything was fine."
Chris Wright was flagged for a technical trying to get out from underneath Wellington Smith after being fouled by the sophomore forward and two free throws by Ruoff again took the lead down to four.
Out of the under-12:00 media time out, Georgetown embarked on a 16-0 run that started with Sapp posting up Joe Mazzulla and scoring inside.
What was the difference in this stretch? "Just being aggressive," explained Jonathan Wallace, who finished with nine points on 75% shooting from the arc. "We started pushing the ball a little bit more. They were able to miss shots and we got rebounds and [caught] guys on the wing running out to get easy layups."
Hibbert drove with his right on Alexander and scored to boost the lead back to eight as West Virginia called time.
When play resumed Ruoff finally missed a three and Jeremiah Rivers' pull-up off the dribble at the elbow was true.
Darris Nichols was also off-target from outside for West Virginia and a long rebound ended up in Wallace's hands, who passed ahead to Summers for the two-handed finish in transition.
Hibbert used a perfect entry pass from Summers and laid the ball home as he was fouled by Jamie Smalligan from behind, extending the lead to 18 with 5:05 left.
Hibbert screamed once, then twice as he walked away from the basket. It was after the game that a slightly embarrassed Hibbert admitted what he had yelled. It was somewhat silly, and he knew it, but it also described his dominant night perfectly.
"I'm a monster right now."
"I'm a monster."
"Be afraid."
Notes:
-It was not the insane 17-28 shooting display that the Hoyas put on Thursday against Villanova, but Georgetown shot a very fine 7-17 from downtown (41.2%) against the Mountaineers.
-Hibbert's show overshadowed a 13 point, 7 rebound effort by Jessie Sapp.
-Eight different Hoyas dished out at least two assists apiece. Georgetown had a 17:10 assist-to-turnover ratio.
-Georgetown was just 1-7 at the free throw line (14.3%).
-Da'Sean Butler was the scoring leader for West Virginia, tallying 16.
-The Hoyas outrebounded the Mountaineers 40-22.
-Georgetown and Pitt will meet for the Big East tournament title at 9:00 pm ET Saturday night on ESPN in a rematch of last year's Big East championship game.
