Hibbert defies reason to return to Hoyas for final year

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HAVERFORD, Pa. -- When Georgetown's Roy Hibbert strode into the gym at Haverford College on Thursday night, his head bobbing above a pack of 29 other college stars at the tryouts for USA Basketball's Pan American Games team, a few things were immediately apparent:

• He had cut weight from his 7-foot-2 frame, which is now a leaner 275 pounds. He attributed this to part running-and-lifting regimen, part decreased intake of General Mills snack food. "I have a thing for Chex Mix," Hibbert laments. "I've been cutting down on it."

• He had cut his hair, from a scruffy halfro (which Hibbert had let grow during the NCAA tournament "for good luck") down to a more closely shorn 'do.

• He had cut off his sleeves, bagging the baggy T that has been the staple of his -- and so many a Hoya big man -- on-court wardrobe. Hibbert's reasoning for this is simple: It's cold in D.C.'s Verizon Center in January, and warm here in the Philly 'burbs in July.

• He had cut his jersey number down to 35, which happens to be his Hoyas digits (55) minus those of Final Four foe Greg Oden (20). That's just a coincidence; Hibbert's number was randomly assigned by Team USA.

The Big Roy now playing in Haverford is, in many ways, stripped down from the Big Roy we last saw in Atlanta in March. Yet he's still the most prominent presence at the Pan-Am trials, and the biggest lock to make the 12-man team in what should be a hotly contested tryout. The roster is stocked with Wooden watch players -- from Chris Lofton (Tennessee) to Drew Neitzel (Michigan State), to Shan Foster (Vanderbilt) to D.J. White (Indiana) -- but no one other than Hibbert appeared in this past Final Four. No one other than Hibbert had the chance to be a Lottery Pick in this past NBA Draft, only to pass it up and return to school for his senior season. In an offseason where nearly all the college 7-footers -- Oden, Joakim Noah, Spencer Hawes and Jason Smith -- leapt to the league, Hibbert stayed, defying the logic that suggests players not leave guaranteed NBA contracts on the table.

"I'd rather have seen [Hibbert] go pro -- because we have to play Georgetown twice next year," says Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who's also the chair of USA Basketball's collegiate committee and was watching from the sidelines in Haverford. "But I've never thought it hurts really good players, like Roy, to stay in college. It didn't hurt Patrick Ewing. It didn't hurt Derrick Coleman. It didn't hurt Tim Duncan or Alonzo Mourning, and they stayed all four years."

Hibbert is likely to improve on his 12.9-points, 6.9-rebounds per game averages from last season, and the Hoyas -- who gain much-needed backcourt depth with freshmen Chris Wright and Austin Freeman -- should remain in the top-10 picture for '07-08. Which is a nice situation to be in, but with Hibbert and Jeff Green, the East Region's Most Outstanding Player, Georgetown would have been a consensus No. 1 in the preseason polls. On NBA Draft night two weeks ago, the remaining Hoyas gathered in the basketball office on campus to watch Green get selected No. 5 by the Celtics. Hibbert even put his junk-food-free diet on hiatus for the occasion, which was catered with pizza and hot wings.