"Life moves pretty fast," said Matthew Broderick in the 1986 movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". "If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

So too, a college basketball career. The first three years of Henry Sims' career at Georgetown University went by quickly, and to some, without much progress. Sims' ability to emerge in his senior season was one of the major success stories of the 2011-12 season.

The 6-10 Sims committed to Georgetown a month after the Hoyas' 2007 Final Four, still a junior. "When I visited, I really appreciated coach Thompson's honesty about getting to play right away," Sims told the Baltimore Sun. "Coach Thompson told me that if I worked hard, I would get a chance as a freshman." But by the 2008-09 season, Sims was clearly not ready, and as Greg Monroe settled into the starting center position, Sims saw limited action, averaging just 1.9 points and 1.7 rebounds a game, a major change from the competition Sims had faced when averaging 19 points and 13 rebounds at Mt. St. Joseph's HS, where he led the Gaels to three MIAA championships.

The 2009-10 season was much of the same. With Greg Monroe and Julian Vaughn taking control on the court, Sims took root on the bench, averaging 1.4 points with just eight points in the entire Big East portion of the season. By his junior season, Sims increased his time on the court to 14 minutes a game, but still as a reserve, averaged only 3.6 points a game. A popular member of the team and in the Georgetown community (having finished as a runner up in the student association elections), Sims' basketball potential seem to have faded over his three seasons. Or as head coach John Thompson III once was quoted as having said, Henry "enjoyed college a little too much."

Sims would make sure his last season in college would be a better example of his skills and motivation. "I rededicated myself and fell back in love with the sport. I kind of got away from that the last few years. The reasons for that? I'm not 100% sure why. But it happened."

His running improved, his shot blocking, his free throw shooting, For the first time in his career, he became the go-to guy inside. Once a quiet figure on the floor, Sims took it upon himself to making the defensive calls for his teammates. Thought to be the biggest question mark in the starting lineup entering the season, Sims has been the exclamation point in a season where his play has become vital for the Hoyas' success.

"I've definitely learned to open my mouth on the court more, I understand the importance of it more now than I did in the past," said Sims. "As the center and as a big man in general, you see a lot behind the play. The least I can do is talk to my guards and talk to my teammates and let them know what is going on."

Sims' on-court transformation was remarkable, a tripling of his point average from junior to senior year. In the Big East era, only two other players have elevated their statistics so dramatically in their final season: Ralph Dalton (1982-86) went from 3.2 points to 7.7, while Cheikh Dia (1993-97) went from 2.5 points as a junior to 7.4 as a senior. Sims scored more in his last 25 games than his first three seasons combined, and accomplished something Dalton and Dia did not--for the first time in four years, Henry Sims was being discussed as a serious NBA prospect.

Despite not being drafted, Sims was picked up by the New York Knicks, but released just prior to the opening of the 2012-13 season. Amidst time in the NBA Developmental League and a tour in the Philippine League, Sims was called up to a 10 day contract with the New Orleans Hornets, one of four NBA clubs he would play for over a four year period, highlighted by an 11.8 point, 7.0 rebound average in 26 games for the Philadelphia 76ers. The player that no one expected to see time as a college senior averaged 7.6 points per game in a 135 game NBA career.