The Inevitable Comp

Both teams are led by an All-American caliber SF/PF.

Both teams have sharpshooting junior point guards and Onions at the SG position.

Both teams have a junior glue guy at PF. Both teams have a freshman scorer forcing his way into PT.

Both teams lost two early games in the Big East (including one to Pitt), then proceeded to go on a run.

The 2006-07 team went out after their Pitt loss and went 12-1 the rest of the way. The current team is 11-1 since their Pitt loss.

The 2006-07 opponents' average Pomeroy ranking during the run was 63. The current team's is 74 -- though if you just take the current 9 game winning streak, it is 64.

The average margin of victory during the 12-1 run was 10.5. The average margin of victory during this season's 11-1 run is 10.8.

Do with this as you will.

A Comparison

Color me optimistic this morning.  I'm pretty sure the source is simply halo from the Louisville win and general guilt from having let Brian carry this blog for the past two months, but either way, it occurred to me that this team is kinda, sorta, in that-wow-we-might-be-really-good way similar to the last Hoya Big East regular season champs.

This website keeps non-conference stats, and 2011-12 has all of one conference game played, so non-conference stats are what I'm going to use to compare.  I won't be ignoring the important (read: conference) games in the commentary, but the stats listed will all be non-conference.

The Center of Attention.

Stat           Hibbert [Sr]       Sims [Sr]
Poss%             26                 29  
ORating          122                118
OReb%             14                  9
DReb%             17                 18
ARate             15                 31
TORate            14                 18
Goofiness          8                 10
Block %           10                  8
Team Def Rating   88                 86
Indiv D Rating    89                 84
Monster Points     1                  0

I know. I'm as surprised as you. They have different strengths and weaknesses, but offensively, they have been similarly effective. We know that Roy's performance translated well to conference play -- his low post moves did not lose effectiveness, but we did see his offensive rebounding decline and turnovers increase as he became the focus of better defenses.

That's a concern for Sims; similar slides in either or more games where his shot is rolling out, and his effectiveness will start to rely almost entirely on his passing. And we know from experience the backdoors are severely cut down in conference play.

It is interesting to note that this year's Hoyas are statistically superior to the '07-08 Hoyas in non-conference defense. Some of that is opponent, but it's a nice sign for this year's Hoyas and Sims in particular.  

Verdict: Sims isn't having a Ya-Ya year; he's having what we'll call a Sims year in the future. Ya-Ya went from nothing to decent; Sims is well beyond that. But Roy was still better, though possibly by not as much as I thought.

the rest of the breakdown after the jump