Washington, DC–
There is an old saying that in College Basketball there are two halves of basketball for a reason. Tonight’s reason was the Hoyas needed to regroup after a sluggish first half to defeat the St. John’s Red Storm behind a strong second half effort which included 5 three pointers and 21 points by DaJuan Summers for the Hoyas in a 64-52 victory.
The Hoyas held on to a 27-23 lead at halftime and started the second half where they left off, sluggish.
Four of the Red Storm’s first five baskets of the second half were easy dunks. The first one that got the Red Storm going was a dunk by Eugene Lawrence who tossed an alley-oop to Anthony Mason Jr. After Mason stole a pass and threw down another dunk in transition, Georgetown clung to a one-point lead, 34-33, with 14:30 seconds remaining. This was the last the Red Storm would see the Hoyas struggle.
After Summers made another one of his three-pointers from the right side, Roy Hibbert made quick work of the soft Red Storm defense inside and netted an easy dunk. That was the start of a 9-0 stretch in which Georgetown opened up a 52-41 advantage with 6:42 to play.
Anthony Mason Jr. 12 points and Justin Burrell with 10 led the scoring for St. Johns, who now is just fighting to stay alive to try and become one of the 12 teams that make it to the Big East Tournament.
The fifth straight win for Georgetown against the Red Storm is the longest Hoyas streak in the series. This victory was the closest of the streak; the
“We need to stay focused and we can not look at any of these teams as easy games for the remainder of the season. We have a big match-up against Louisville, but first we must look at the game against Marquette and finish strong heading into the Big East Tournament,” said Hoyas Head Coach John Thompson III.