WASHINGTON (AP) -DaJuan Summers made five 3-pointers and scored 21 points to lead No. 11 Georgetown to a 64-52 win against St. John’s on Wednesday night.
Georgetown (23-4, 13-3 Big East) moved a half-game ahead of Louisville for sole possession of first place in the Big East. The lead may be short-lived: Louisville plays third-place Notre Dame on Thursday night.
Georgetown is 15-0 at home and holds a five-game winning streak against St. John’s (10-17, 4-11).
Roy Hibbert scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half. Summers was 5-of-8 on 3-pointers, giving him a better mark from the outside than he had at point-blank range. He missed two dunks in the first half, including one on a fast break that bounced off the back of the rim into the courtside seats.
Anthony Mason Jr. scored 12 points and Justin Burrell had 10 for St. John’s.
The game was closer than expected until late in the second half.
When these two teams met in New York on Jan. 30, Georgetown led by 27 points at halftime and ended up with a 74-42 win. This time, Georgetown held a narrow 27-23 lead at halftime, and the lead evaporated early in the second half.
Mason opened the half with a strong one-handed alley-oop dunk, and D.J. Kennedy followed with a drive to tie the game at 27. Although Georgetown never trailed in the second half, it had a hard time shaking St. John’s as the Red Storm tied the game three more times.
The Hoyas picked up some breathing room midway through the second half. After Burrell’s basket cut the lead to 43-41 with about 11 1/2 minutes left, St. John’s went scoreless for the next five minutes as Georgetown went on a 9-0 run and took control.
St. John’s shot 45.8 percent from the field, an improvement on its 21 percent mark in the teams’ first meeting. Georgetown had held opponents to 36 percent shooting entering the game, the best mark in Division I.
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 average margin of the four previous wins was 23.3 points.
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