Box score

WASHINGTON, DC—One of the great names in college basketball, Georgetown, lived up to its legacy Saturday afternoon, overwhelming visiting NJIT in nearly every way in an 84-44 men's basketball win for the Hoyas.
 
Against the 3-4 Highlanders, Georgetown (7-1) scored 42 points in each half, while holding NJIT to 28 points in the first half and just 16 in the second.
 
Showing no weakness in any phase of the game, the Hoyas shot 12-for-24 on 3-pointers, 15-for-30 on shots inside the arc, and 18-for-20 on free throws. With a starting lineup that included a 6-foot-10 center and two 6-foot-8 forwards, facing an NJIT lineup whose tallest starter is 6-foot-6, the Hoyas dominated the rebounding, 47-22, including 29-13 in the second half, and they also blocked 13 NJIT shots.
 
Hollis Thompson, a 6-foot-8 Georgetown wing player, scored a game-high 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting that included 6-of-7 threes. Thompson's accuracy was no fluke, as it his three with 1.8 seconds left that lifted Georgetown over Alabama Thursday night and he is now 20-for-34 (.588) from distance for the season.
 
Michael Hopkins, a 6-foot-9 freshman came off the bench for 12 points and senior guard Jason Clark, who was honored in a pre-game ceremony for scoring his 1,000th career point on November 28, finished with 10 points.
 
Five Hoya reserves played at least 14 minutes each and two of them, 6-foot-9 freshman Tyler Adams and 6-foot-8 freshman Otto Porter, shared their team lead with six rebounds apiece. Adams, who is a strong 275 pounds, also blocked a game-high three shots.
 
Not surprisingly for a program built to contend for deep runs into the NCAA Tournament, Georgetown had a 35-11 advantage in bench scoring and a 25-11 lead in bench rebounding.
 
NJIT's two scoring leaders were junior Ryan Woods, who produced 16 points in his first NJIT start, and senior Isaiah Wilkerson, who added 15 points, while also making a game-best three steals. Sophomore guard Lamar Kearse collected six rebounds to lead the Highlanders on the boards. It was the third time in seven games Kearse has been the top rebounder for NJIT after leading the team one time in 26 games last season.
 
NJIT has never played a nationally-ranked team in men's basketball, but Georgetown is likely to break into the national Top 25 as soon as next week, when the next rankings come out. The Hoyas, who were listed among “others receiving votes” in the latest polls, have won five straight including a 57-55 win two nights ago on the road against #12 Alabama, the first loss of the year for Crimson Tide, which had won its previous 24 home games.
 
Against that backdrop, Georgetown broke out on top early, scoring the game's first eight points and going up 18-4 when Clark hit a pair of free throws with 12:11 left in the first half.
 
Neither team scored for a couple of minutes, but Woods, the transfer who missed the opening three games for the Highlanders while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, got going along with Wilkerson.
 
Woods, who is expected to be a key player for NJIT this year, has been seeing increased playing time in his three games since coming off the injured list, and Saturday he slid into the lineup when Washington, DC-area native PJ Miller had to sit with a bruised knee sustained in the first half at Army.
 
Down, 18-4, Woods hit a 3-pointer with 10:54 left in the half, sparking NJIT's best stretch of the game, as the Highlanders played the Hoyas to a scoring standstill, 24-24, in the nearly 11 minutes from Woods' triple to the end of the half.
 
Another Woods three, at the 4:38 mark brought the NJIT deficit to single-digits at nine points, 30-21, for the first-time since the Hoyas had gone up 14-2 on a Thompson trey at 15:59. The last single-digit deficit for the Highlanders was short-lived (28 seconds) until a pair of Clark free throws pushed Georgetown's advantage back to 11 at 4:10.
 
At the break, Woods, with 13 points, and Wilkerson, with 11, were the two top scorers in the game, with NJIT's four other points coming from Chris Flores. Georgetown, holding a 42-28 lead on the scoreboard, had 10 points from Clark and nine from Thompson.
 
Despite trailing by 14 at the half, NJIT had played well, within its capabilities, committing just five turnovers and leading the Hoyas in points-off-of-turnovers, 8-2.
 
Georgetown totally controlled the second half, scoring the first 18 points to expand its lead from 14 to 32 in the opening six minutes. NJIT, which missed its first 12 field goals attempts of the second half, did not score until Sean McCarthy hit a pair of free throws with 13:45 left. Wilkerson got his team's first basket of the second half on a driving layup with 10:55, but by then, his team trailed 67-32.
 
NJIT managed to score 10 more points, but finished 5-for-29 from the floor in the half, including just 1-for-10 from distance. Nine of NJIT's 24 second-half misses were blocked by the Hoyas.
 
The Highlanders, who are in the most difficult part of their schedule, will continue with another Big East opponent, playing the third annual game against Seton Hall next. That game is Tuesday at 7 pm in downtown Newark at the Prudential Center.