Barely a minute into the proceedings Friday night, Georgetown’s Roy Hibbert moseyed into the low block and hip-checked a West Virginia defender in his way, sending the Mountaineer into a full-body quiver.
The baseline official blew his whistle: offensive foul, Hibbert. Obscured by the groans about the call was a message. The drowsy-eyed, 7-foot-2-inch Hoya center decided to show up in this Big East Tournament semifinal. Someone woke a sleeping giant.
After a no-show a day earlier, Hibbert scored 25 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead top-seeded Georgetown to a 72-55 victory over fifth-seeded West Virginia, pushing the Hoyas into the championship game against Pitt.
Given that zero-point, 14-minute quarterfinal effort, there was no more amusing a sight than this one with five minutes to play: Hibbert getting hacked, scoring and then screaming as he walked to the free-throw line — “I’m an animal! I’m an animal!”
“I just came to the game trying to establish myself down low,” a more subdued Hibbert said afterward. “Not just trying to score but trying to set the tone.”
That Hibbert score came at the tail end of a 16-0 Hoyas run that turned a four-point game into a 67-47 runaway.
It was one of many, varied contributions. Hibbert scored 13 first-half points in 13 minutes on everything from one-handed dunks to a top-of-the-key three-pointer.
And though he contributed just four points in that decisive run, Hibbert set a screen for a Patrick Ewing Jr. jumper and dished off to Jessie Sapp for another score.
“[Villanova’s] game plan was to sit three people around Roy and they said, we’re going to make you make a shot,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. “That’s what we did. There was no need for a big powwow.
“We don’t want and we’re not going to have games where Roy doesn’t score. But we didn’t have to go back to the drawing board and reinvent the wheel.”
The victory gives the Hoyas a chance at back-to-back tournament titles for the first time since 1984 and ’85, an effort Patrick Ewing Sr. led.
After one throwaway effort, Hibbert looked more like a throwback Friday.
“I knew he was going to come out hungry,” Sapp said, “so we wanted to feed him.”
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bchamilton@tribune.com
