The most famous play of Roy Hibbert‘s Georgetown career happened by accident, and it still gives him nightmares.
With five seconds remaining against Connecticut on Jan. 12, 2008, the 7-foot-2 Hibbert calmly nailed a three-pointer from the top of the key to break a 69-69 tie, giving the then seventh-ranked Hoyas a huge victory over the Huskies and sending the Verizon Center into absolute delirium.
At the time, Georgetown head coach John Thompson III said it was “not a fluke.” The way Hibbert recalls it, that’s only because of what the Hoyas’ Princeton-style offense demanded of him.
“I seriously wake up in cold sweats still remembering the plays,” said Hibbert, now a second-year NBA center who was at Verizon last weekend with the Indiana Pacers. “I can still remember that play. Jon Wallace messed up the play against UConn, and so I had to take the three. We were supposed to run a play for him to take the last shot, but he messed it up.”
Clearly, Hibbert handled that mistake just fine, but others haven’t been quite as inclined to welcome the pressure of being a Hoya. Elite recruiting, delicately balanced with a unique offense, has defined Georgetown’s resurgence under Thompson, but it’s come with its own set of trade-offs, notably the wave of recent defections.
“It’s a program that’s rich in tradition,” said Hibbert. “At the same time, being coached by coach Thompson, he is tough on you, and he is going to want the most out of you. Sometimes, people don’t want to hear that stuff.”
Vernon Macklin and Jeremiah Rivers both went with Georgetown to the 2007 Final Four but are now elsewhere. Macklin averages 10.6 points and 5.7 rebounds at Florida, and Rivers is a member of the starting backcourt at Indiana, putting up 7.1 points and 4.8 assists per game. Last year, DaJuan Summers left for the NBA as a junior even though he was far from a lottery pick, actually dropping to the second round.
Whatever the reason, Hibbert doesn’t want it to cost him a friendship.
“Sometimes people don’t like the offenses,” said Hibbert. “Sometimes people don’t like the school. Sometimes they have family situations and things like that so I talk to those guys. It isn’t that I only talk to the guys who are on the team. I talk to Vernon. I talk to DaJuan. I talk to Jeremiah just as much … They’re my teammates for life.”
