The Under Appreciation of Roy Hibbert

[SFHoya99]

FG%	2 PT FG%	3 PT FG%	eFG%
42%	42%	n/a	42%
43%	43%	n/a	43%
39%	39%	n/a	39%
40%	40%	n/a	40%
-	-	-	-
40%	41%	36%	43%
37%	39%	30%	40%
37%	39%	29%	40%
40%	42%	34%	44%
-	-	-	-
41%	45%	33%	46%
42%	46%	35%	48%
38%	43%	30%	44%
37%	41%	30%	42%

Halfway through last year, the team made a conscious decision to let the guards sell out against the three and make opponents beat Roy down low. They couldn't. Since then, despite having guards most people describe as unathletic and aside from Rivers, as mediocre defenders, this team has been an elite defensive team. Roy on an island down low managed to keep people from scoring twos -- and allowed our guards to keep people from hitting threes.

Compare the team defense Roy's junior and senior years to those two sets of four years above him and realize that despite a lack of jumping ability, how much of a defensive presence this man was. He wasn't a great shotblocker (though I still have a bone to pick with our home scorer) but he was a brilliant shot-alterer. The numbers are in the same class. I'm not sure the defensive talent surrounding him was.

Yes, Roy was more efficient than dominant on offense. But by focusing on a game where he played 16 minutes, don't miss the other half of the game. A half where Roy absolutely dominated.

I think most Hoya fans appreciated Roy's offense -- even clamored for more most often. But his defense is likely where we will miss him the most.

Congrats on a great career, Roy.

[royski]

Amen. Roy Hibbert is an all-time great Hoya and was the main cog that gave us one of the very best defenses in the nation. We'll be missing him next year, that's for certain.

[daytonahoya31]

You've had a great career, Roy

You definitely are an all-time great and just your sheer presence this season made us a much better team

[HoyaChris]

I am assuming that the first two sets of stats are for Patrick and Zo - nice company.

[lichoya68]

great contributor to our rebirth adn even better a great kid im sure heell devolope the mean thing more in the nba...nice off the court is good roybemeaner on the court will be awesome just wait and see go hoyas go roy lets fill leavey for the bball banquet for these especially the gret senior class with lot of class

[SFHoya99]

Mar 26, 2008 4:42:31 GMT -5 HoyaChris said:

I am assuming that the first two sets of stats are for Patrick and Zo - nice company.

Yep -- and I'm not trying to draw this into an exact comparison. Just that defensively, Roy's teams are in the same ballpark as Patrick's and the Zo/Mutombo years.

If I have the time, I'll post some of the years we had little to no defensive presence and some of the years we had middle of the road presence (say, Ruben).

[hoyarooter]

I know that Monroe is reputed to be an excellent shot blocker, but I believe that the loss of Roy's defensive presence will be an enormous adjustment for us next season, and is perhaps the major reason why we should not overinflate expectations for next season's team.

[NCHoya]

Exactly hoyarooter, I was thinking of this the other day. The real challenge next year will be to come close to replicating our performance on defense.

Roy was a HUGE part of that and while I am sure Monroe has a ton to offer in terms of making the big, dominating blocks, the key question will be: Is Monroe able to have the consistency that Roy had to effectively reduce the opponent's FG% every game? Roy was consistently a force in the middle, and while not being spectacular, his presence was dominating.

[SFHoya99]

I have the utmost confidence in RDF and other's evaluation of Monroe as a shotblocker. But he's still going to be a freshman. And he's going to be a shotblocker in the sense that his strength is timing and jumping. One great thing about Roy was that he couldn't jump. When was the last time Roy Hibbert fell for a pump fake? When was the last time he overextended and couldn't recover? It was rare.

Of course, the athleticism of a Monroe brings other benefits (quicker recovery on switches and fast breaks -- how much did I miss Jeff's almost automatic ability to singlehandedly destroy fast break layups?), but the fact is that he is going to have to commit more to get the same shot-altering that Roy did -- and that makes it harder to do other things.

[gujake]

I agree completely. Although I think our defense will be fine next year, we should probably expect to give up a whole lot more layups than we are used to.

[hoyahebrew]

Roy has come a long way since I first saw him play at the Prep and deserves a world of credit, but I don't think Barack Obama's grandmother would refer to him as intimidating.

I hope Coach does away with the "Princeton style" system for the coming years. It's designed for non-athletic players. Now that Roy is gone, we are totally athletic. And for that matter, a trip to Princeton, Richmond, Denver, and Evanston would find that it ain't working that well for non athletes.
Let's get physical and run. I suggest our Coach should shun the legacy of Carril, and get tutorials on up tempo basketball from neighborhood guys like Fang Mitchell and Julius Smith.

On the recruiting front, can't believe we weren't in the mix for Echenique. He was close to choosing Duke, but Rutgers?

[kchoya]

Mar 26, 2008 17:42:26 GMT -5 hoyahebrew said:

Roy has come a long way since I first saw him play at the Prep and deserves a world of credit, but I don't think Barack Obama's grandmother would refer to him as intimidating.

I hope Coach does away with the "Princeton style" system for the coming years. It's designed for non-athletic players. Now that Roy is gone, we are totally athletic. And for that matter, a trip to Princeton, Richmond, Denver, and Evanston would find that it ain't working that well for non athletes.
Let's get physical and run. I suggest our Coach should shun the legacy of Carril, and get tutorials on up tempo basketball from neighborhood guys like Fang Mitchell and Julius Smith.

On the recruiting front, can't believe we weren't in the mix for Echenique. He was close to choosing Duke, but Rutgers?

Ugh, I thought you were gone. You are an EDITED (saved you the trouble Dan).

The Princeton-style, in its pure, unaltered form, may be designed for slow ivy league players, but it's variations do just fine with whatever types of players you have. And, arguably, it's even better with "athletes." When you take your trip around the country (and never come back I hope), why don't you stop at ASU, Sacramento or even the Wizards' practice to see how they're doing.

Really, you want JT3 to try and emulate Coppin State and UDC? Um, ok.

And if you're going to criticize our recruiting record, then you're really clueless. I'll take Riley (and Monroe, Braswell and Sims) over Echenique any day.

[strummer8526]

Hebrew is the new Foeva.

Hey edited, can you give me a nickname? Now that our previous moron is gone, my avatar doesn't make as much sense.

As for Roy, I don't think he's necessarily UNDER-appreciated. I think next year will define Roy, both in how we play without him, and how his NBA team plays with him. If he becomes a great NBA player, he goes down w/ Zo and Dike. If he rides a bench for 5 years (which I think is FAR less likely considering his range of skills), then I'd say he increases in all of our estimations.

[SFHoya99]

I don't get that Strummer. What Roy does in the NBA is immaterial to the evaluation of his time here. Reality is, he allowed our defense to reach elite levels, reach a Final Four and win Back to Back BE Titles.

If Monroe is just as good, that doesn't decrease what he accomplished. And if the NBA game ends up being a bit fast, that doesn't, either.

[McBricks]

Now imagine if we had gotten him the ball/he demanded the ball a bit more on O and then had the same fire as Zo or even Ewing Jr. on D. I know SF will talk for days about how "intangibles" don't matter and the stats are proof. But I have a funny feeling we could have been a much better team all around if Roy was more aggresive and demanded to be a leader on and off the court. I have no doubt that Roy was a great ambassador for the Hoyas, but I am for certain looking forward to next season.

[SFHoya99]

Mar 26, 2008 19:45:25 GMT -5 McBricks said:

Now imagine if we had gotten him the ball/he demanded the ball a bit more on O and then had the same fire as Zo or even Ewing Jr. on D. I know SF will talk for days about how "intangibles" don't matter and the stats are proof. But I have a funny feeling we could have been a much better team all around if Roy was more aggresive and demanded to be a leader on and off the court. I have no doubt that Roy was a great ambassador for the Hoyas, but I am for certain looking forward to next season.

McBricks throwing down.

There's no doubt Roy could've had more of an impact on offense. I'm just not on board on the "fire" on D thing. Roy worked his butt of on D -- and it showed in both observational evidence and numbers. I don't need a guy to yell or swat it into the fifth Roy to make someone miss a shot. His effort on D shouldn't be questioned -- this is a guy who picked several guards' pockets one on one and was never late back on D.

But yeah, I'm sure he could've been more on offense. That doesn't mean he wasn't a great player -- and that doesn't mean that anyone next year is going to be able to fill his shoes on D.

[lamontmorgan]

Roy was certianly not appreciated by the midwest refs in the Davidson game. One of the many strides he made throughout his career was not making tired fouls. He was always available this year for a crunch time easy basket--well until the last game.

teesweekly.com/ARCHIVE/foulingout.html