The Georgetown Hoyas opened their game against the 8th-ranked Syracuse Orange with a three-pointer from DaJuan Summers. They never lost the lead. Summers scored a game-high 21 points as the Hoyas came up with a comprehensive 88-74 victory over their long-time rival.

Georgetown entered the game on a bad shooting stretch from long range, but they opened the game on fire, making eight three-pointers in the first half from five different players. Another aspect of Georgetown’s game that needed improvement was the play from the bench, but the Hoyas got 29 points from the reserves, led by 12 from Jason Clark, and six from Nikita Mescheriakov, who made two first half three-pointers in only two minutes of playing time. Georgetown led 50-32 at halftime.

To start the second half, Syracuse took a huge chunk out of the deficit and cut the lead to eight with 15:42 remaining. Sixteen seconds later, Summers made a three-pointer to push the lead back to 11 and the lead never returned to single digits. Georgetown gave the Orange defense fits all night, finishing the game shooting 59.3% from the field (32-54) and 57.1% from long range (12-21). Austin Freeman scored 19 points (4-5 3PT) and Greg Monroe had another well-rounded performance with 10 points, seven rebounds, and six assists. The loss was the first in conference play for Syracuse who fall to 4-1. The Orange return home to host Notre Dame on Saturday.

The Hoyas are now 3-2 in Big East play but wait a week until they face another conference foe. They have a non-conference road game this Saturday against the Duke Blue Devils at 1:30 PM.