WASHINGTON -- George Washington's Pops Mensah-Bonsu set the game's tone on the very first possession, drawing a charge on Saint Joseph's star Abdulai Jalloh.
On the Hawks' next trip down the court, GW's Danilo Pinnock blocked a jumper.
And so it went for much of the first half Saturday, with No. 17 George Washington using a stifling defense to pull away for an 82-70 victory over the Hawks behind a career-high 20 points from Carl Elliott.
"When you get physically intimidated in that way, mentally you kind of, like, crack," Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. "That's what I felt happened the first eight minutes. It sure seemed like they had more than five guys, and we had less than five out there at that time."
GW (12-1, 3-0 Atlantic 10) never trailed and led by as many as 21 points against Saint Joseph's (6-7, 1-3), which has lost four of five.
The Colonials took a 14-5 lead, then held Saint Joseph's scoreless for nearly 6 minutes during a 12-0 run that made it 32-13. It was a welcome breather for GW, which rallied from second-half deficits to win its previous two games in overtime. After the second of those, against Saint Louis on Wednesday, Colonials coach Karl Hobbs chastised the home fans for booing his players.
But there were only cheers from the announced crowd of 4,356 on Saturday during the rematch of last year's A-10 tournament championship game, also won by George Washington.
"We felt this game was going to be dictated by our defense. We put a lot of emphasis on defense yesterday in practice as well as today in our shootaround," Hobbs said. "The last two games, we've struggled with points, and I wanted to take our minds off of that and focus on defense. That clearly was the difference in the game -- our first-half defense."
Pinnock scored 13 of his 18 points in the first half, when the Colonials held the Hawks to 1-for-11 shooting on 3-pointers and 29 percent overall from the field.
GW, meanwhile, went 14-for-19 on 2-point field goal attempts in the first half.
"We were more skillful the last 30 minutes of the game than we were the first 10. Unfortunately all 40 minutes count," Martelli said. "I don't think the score is really indicative of the spread. They kind of dominated the game."
GW's Mike Hall finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Mensah-Bonsu scored 13. When the Hawks tried to come back in the second half, Hall and Elliott went a combined 5-for-5 on 3-pointers.
"We came out very intense and put a lot of ball pressure on their guards and forced them to do something under duress," Elliott said, calling the first half GW's best 20 minutes of the season. "We all came out and just were very aggressive."
Chet Stachitas and Dwayne Lee led Saint Joseph's with 14 points apiece; Stachitas scored all of his in the second half. Jalloh, who came in with a team-leading 16.8-point scoring average, was held to nine on 2-for-8 shooting.
Saint Joseph's opened the second half with an 11-3 run to pull within 41-34, thanks to three 3-pointers by Stachitas, who missed all four of his first-half shots.
But Hall answered with a 3-pointer and long jumper that put GW back up by 10 points. The visitors never got closer.
Repeatedly, GW's tight defense would force Saint Joseph's to get its offense going late in 35-second shot clock. At least three times, Colonials blocked shots as time was running out for the Hawks.
Pinnock had seven points during the decisive 12-0 run, capping the spurt with a steal and end-to-end run for a soaring dunk that prompted Martelli to call a timeout with 5:10 left in the half. Jalloh ended the visitors' scoring drought with a baseline jumper with 4:39 to go, but GW led 38-23 at halftime.
