WASHINGTON -- Roy Hibbert had a quiet afternoon and Georgetown's second-leading scorer was sidelined, so DaJuan Summers and Jeremiah Rivers stepped to the fore.
Summers led the way with 16 points and one big block, Rivers contributed a game-high five assists with zero turnovers, and the Hoyas overcame poor free-throw shooting and a surprising second-half deficit to beat Fairfield 61-49 Saturday.
Thanks in large part to tough defense that limited Fairfield to 5-for-27 shooting after halftime, Georgetown improved to 5-0 for the first time since 2003.
Still, the hosts were ahead only 45-44 with 6½ minutes to go. That's when Summers took over, scoring five consecutive points and then blocking a shot at the other end.
And that, basically, was that, part of a game-closing 16-5 run.
On Summers' swat, he came across the lane, jumped in front of Fairfield's Anthony Johnson, smothered the ball and sent the Hoyas out on a break that ended with Hibbert feeding Rivers for a layup to make it 52-46 with under four minutes left.
"That was an unbelievable block," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "We needed that. Oh, boy, did we need that right there."
Even though Fairfield (2-5) has lost to the likes of St. Francis, N.Y., this season and came in having lost 15 in a row against ranked opponents, the game was tied 33-all at halftime. They constantly sent two or three defenders at the 7-foot-2 Hibbert, who wound up with only seven points and the same number of field goals as assists (two).
"If you try to play him man to man, and try to single him, there's no way -- he's 8 feet, 11 inches tall," Fairfield coach Ed Cooley said. "We wanted to make it tough for them to throw post entry passes."
Hibbert's first basket of the game came 14 minutes in.
Georgetown didn't make a second-half field goal until he put the ball in off the glass four minutes into the period. Remarkably, the hosts needed that basket to erase Fairfield's lead and go ahead 36-35.
Yorel Hawkins' jumper lifted Fairfield back into a tie at 39-all with under 12 minutes left in the game, and it stayed close for a while.
"For 38 minutes, that was the best we've played all year," Cooley said. "We knew we had to shoot a high percentage in order to steal a win on the road against what I think is the best team in the country."
Well, that didn't happen, thanks in part to Rivers' tight defense on Jonathan Han, who led Fairfield with 17 points, but only scored six in the second half.
Rivers made both 3-pointers he attempted, and scored nine points. His efficiency on offense helped make up for Jonathan Wallace's poor shooting: The senior guard went 5-for-14 from the field for 13 points.
Summers shot 6-for-10, with two 3s, and had four rebounds and two assists to go along with that key block.
"What DaJuan has been doing, and what we need him to do, is things like that. He needs to run down rebounds. He needs to make defensive plays. The baskets, the points, will come," Thompson said. "But he has the ability to be pretty successful in a lot of different areas -- the areas that are dirty, the hustle stuff. Not to say he can't do the pretty things, also."
The Hoyas lost Jessie Sapp, who entered averaging 12 points and a team-high 5.3 assists, 23 seconds into the game after he was kneed in the head. Sapp did not return to action until the start of the second half, but he only played six minutes and missed his only shot.
Rivers filled in capably, but Georgetown had its problems putting the ball in the basket, shooting nearly the same on 3-pointers (8-for-22, 36 percent) as from the foul line (9-for-22, 41 percent).
"That was horrible. That's the only way to put it," Thompson said about his team's free-throw shooting. "That has to be fixed. You're just giving up points."
Rivers, 1-for-4 at the line, figured he knows what's coming.
"Usually at the end of practice, we always have this free-throw challenge-type thing," he said with a smile. "I have a feeling we'll be doing that quite heavily for the next week or so."
