Charles Nailen/The Hoya Senior guard Gerald Riley rolls in a layup while his opponents look on. Riley scored a game-high 25 points, shooting above 50 percent, as Georgetown beat Norfolk State 76-53.

First halves just do not seem to be the Hoyas’ thing. In another matchup where they had a clear talent advantage, the Georgetown men’s basketball team started out slow enough to be leading by only two at halftime. But an impenetrable defense in the second half combined with spectacular offense by senior guard Gerald Riley allowed Georgetown to come away with a 76-53 win over Norfolk State on Wednesday.

“I don’t know who that team was in the first half,” Head Coach Craig Esherick said. “But it was a completely different team in the second half.”

The Hoyas (5-0, 0-0) of the first half played roughly to the level of the Spartans (0-4, 0-0). Georgetown committed 11 turnovers in the first 12:50 and struggled to make easy baskets, with just six points in the paint. They even looked weak at the free-throw line, where they were 5-of-11. On defense, they let the Spartans’ junior guard Chakowby Hicks score 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting including two three-pointers.

In each of their games since opening with a blowout over Grambling State, Georgetown has struggled in the first half. Against Delaware State and Penn State, they were losing at halftime; against Coastal Carolina, they led by just three.

On Wednesday they took a 32-30 lead into the locker room, but came out with defensive energy that generated fast-break layups or open-look jumpers.

“When the other team is having trouble handling the ball and we’re putting pressure on the other team, we seem to get an awful lot of easy baskets,” Esherick said. “We’ve got to find a way to bottle that and play that way for both halves.”

Norfolk State opened the second half with a three-pointer that put them up by one, but Georgetown took off an a 32-8 run and did not relinquish that lead.

Riley scored 19 of his game-leading 25 points in the second half. Much of the offense was created by the turnovers the Hoyas’ man-to-man defense forced. During one stretch, Georgetown stole the ball on five consecutive Norfolk State possessions. The Spartans had 17 of their 26 turnovers in the second half, and the Hoyas scored 16 of their 22 points off turnovers in the same period.

“When we get a lot of steals it picks up the tempo and gets us hyped,” sophomore guard Ashanti Cook said. “We were looking to get the fast break going a lot, so we could get easy buckets in transition instead of having to run the half-court offense all the time.”

To create easy baskets Cook did his fair share of penetrating and dishing to teammates, including one impressive no-look pass to Riley underneath the basket, which resulted in Riley getting a layup and a foul for a three-point play.

Despite the drastic change from half to half, Esherick said he did not deliver a tirade during the break to motivate his team.

“I didn’t think it was the time to rant and rave, but I just talked in a very calm voice about trying to make certain that we stayed out on the shooters and to make certain that everybody understood we were still up by two points,” Esherick said.

Rebounding continues to be an area of concern for Georgetown. Although the Hoyas outrebounded the Spartans 38-32, the leading rebounder was Cook, not starting senior center Courtland Freeman, who had just one board. Cook is the fourth different player to lead the team in rebounds this season.

“The way I look at this team early on is I don’t think we necessarily need to get one person on the inside as much as we need to be a good team rebounding,” Esherick said.

Cook added, “Coach is emphasizing boxing out and getting rebounds because we can’t get outrebounded by Big East teams.”

Sophomore forward Brandon Bowman had 19 points and eight rebounds, and junior swingman Darrell Owens added 14 on 6-of-8 shooting.

Esherick said he was pleased to be able to get freshmen Ray Reed, Matt Causey, Kenny Izzo and Sead Dizdarevic along with redshirt freshman Amadou Kilkenny-Diaw into the game. Of those new faces, Reed played the most with 17 minutes, getting three rebounds but shooting 0-of-4.

Georgetown continued its unbeaten streak against teams from the id-Eastern Athletic Conference, extending the record to 42-0.

The Hoyas will play their next game tomorrow at 8 p.m. against Davidson at MCI Center.