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Summers keeps Georgetown afloat early, finishes with career high

Feb 6, 2008 - 5:46 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- DaJuan Summers picked up Georgetown early and often on Tuesday.

Summers scored a career-high 24 points as the sixth-ranked Hoyas overcome a difficult start to record a 63-53 victory over South Florida in a Big East Conference matchup.

Roy Hibbert had 13 points, eight rebounds and tied a career high with six blocks for Georgetown (19-2, 9-1 Big East), which captured its sixth straight win and remained the only one-loss team in the league.

"What we do is about us," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "You've heard me say that for three years now. Who you play is irrelevant - it's a way and a level that you have to do things that you should do things, so who you play is irrelevant."

Kentrell Gransberry was one of three players with 13 points for South Florida (10-13, 1-9), which dropped its ninth consecutive game.

"We defended really well," Bulls coach Stan Heath said. "To battle their patience offensively and make them guard us too, we went down the wire. I can't fault our effort, I can't fault the way the guys played out there together."

Early on, the Hoyas looked like the Big East's last-place team, missing their first six shots from the field and nine of 10. In do so, Georgetown fell behind 13-3.

That deficit could have been greater if not for Summers, who scored the first 11 points for the Hoyas. The sophomore forward's third 3-pointer made it 16-9 with 12:46 left in the first half.

"I was just trying to be aggressive as I usually am, but the rest of the games I wasn't 100 percent health and ankle wise," Summers said. "I was trying to be more physical today and not just shoot the basketball and try to attack of the dribble."

Summers also had a layup and Jeremiah Rivers sank a jumper to cut the deficit to 16-13 just 46 seconds later.

Although the Bulls answered back with six straight points, the Hoyas eventually took a 27-24 advantage at intermission after closing out the half on a 14-2 run. Hibbert scored the first six points and eight overall in the burst.

A tip shot by Mobolaji Ajayi got South Florida within 29-28 just under two minutes into the second half before Georgetown went on a 12-4 run. Summers connected on his fourth and final 3-pointer during the run.

Summers also capped a 10-2 run with a fastbreak dunk for a 51-39 advantage with 7:44 to play. South Florida got no closer than seven points thereafter.

"They played good defense early on and we were also impatient at times," said Georgetown guard Jessie Sapp, who scored 11 points. "We calmed down in the second half and late in the first half. Then we got everything in order and picked up where we should've been in the first half. DaJuan just kept going and we all just starting getting rebounds more and other things started coming around for us."

Summers finished 8-of-14 from the field and 4-of-8 from the arc en route to his first double-digit effort in points in four games.

He also grabbed nine rebounds as the Hoyas finished with a decisive 43-27 advantage on the boards.

"He got nine rebounds," Thompson said of Summers. "Everyone knows he can score and has scored in different ways, but just the effort and attentiveness he showed in pursuing rebounds I thought was key today."

That was significant as Gransberry is the Big East's top rebounder at 10.7 per game. The senior center ended up with nine rebounds, but the Bulls finished with just six offensive boards - less than half of their season average.

"Overall I think our rebounding, and maybe it's the first time you can say this this year, our rebounding got us through tonight," Thompson said. "I thought we did a pretty good job on the boards against a team that gets a lot more than six offensive rebounds and a lot more opportunities for second shots and I think we did a good job of limiting that."

Freshman Dominique Jones scored 15 points and Jesus Verdejo added 11 and five assists for South Florida, which failed to score 60 points for the third straight game.