WASHINGTON – Henry Sims scored 13 points and nine rebounds, and No. 14 Georgetown held South Florida without a point for nearly 11 minutes in the first half Saturday in a 75-45 win over the Bulls.
Otto Porter added 12 points, and Jason Clark had 11 for the Hoyas (18-4, 8-3 Big East), who led 18-5 late in the first half and spent much of the second half with a 20-point cushion.
Augustus Gilchrist scored 15 points to lead the Bulls (13-10, 6-4), who shot 26 percent in the first half and 31 percent for the game. They also committed 17 turnovers.
The 11 a.m. tipoff between the Big East's two stingiest defenses was expected to be low-scoring, but South Florida put on an incredible display of offensive ineptitude when they committed turnovers on nine straight possessions during a 14-0 Georgetown run.
It was Georgetown's second straight solid defensive effort. The Hoyas held Connecticut to 44 points and 30 percent shooting Wednesday night, the Huskies' worst output in both categories since the 1990s. It's a stark turnaround from last weekend, when Georgetown allowed Pittsburgh to shoot 52 percent, a defensive performance deemed "awful" by coach John Thompson III.
On Saturday, it helped that South Florida kept committing errors.
Ron Anderson Jr.'s traveling violation with 12:56 left started the cascade. It seemed every Bulls player wanted in. A bad pass by Toarlyn Fitzpatrick at 11:51. Another such pass by Anthony Collins at 11:25. A poor pass by Jawanzaa Poland at 10:40. The Bulls actually got a shot off on the next possession, but they got the rebound and then lost the ball on a bad pass by Hugh Robertson at 9:46. Then there was a botched pass by Victor Rudd Jr. at 8:46.
That's six turnovers in a row by six different players. After three more — by Poland, Anderson and Gilchrist — there came in a possession in which Robertson missed a layup and the Hoyas' Sims grabbed the rebound with 6:35 remaining in the half, ending the turnover streak. Only one of nine was produced by Georgetown steal.
South Florida still hadn't scored in a while. It was 18-5 with 4:12 to go when Gilchrist hit a 3-pointer, ending a scoring drought that lasted 10 minutes, 52 seconds.
Georgetown needed some time to get going as well, leading only 23-15 at halftime. But the Hoyas were clicking in the second half, shooting 65 percent. A three-point play by Thompson pushed the lead to 15, and a 3-pointer by Starks got it to 18. A just-for-fun alley-oop dunk by Aaron Bowen accounted the game's final points, making for a 30-point margin of victory.
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Joseph White can be reached at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP