WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., March 17 – The sleeping giant awoke at halftime.

After disappearing in the first half, Georgetown junior center Roy Hibbert came alive in the second, scoring 15 second-half points as second-seeded Georgetown (28-6) came back from eight down to defeat Boston College (21-12) 62-55 on Saturday night and move on to the Sweet 16.

“He’s an animal,” junior forward Patrick Ewing Jr. said of Hibbert. “He was kind of being complacent in the first half, and we lit a fire under him in the second half. We told him if we want to win he’s going to have to step it up, and he definitely did what we asked him to do, and we got the win.”

With the victory, Georgetown advances to take on Vanderbilt (22-11), which defeated third-seeded Washington State in a double-overtime thriller, 78-74, on Saturday afternoon. Georgetown defeated Vanderbilt 86-70 in mid-November.

“We’re a tough team, and [Vanderbilt] is a tough team,” Ewing said, “but if we do what we are supposed to do we will come up with the win.”

Saturday’s matchup between the Eagles and the Hoyas was a heated affair after BC senior forward Jared Dudley entered a Friday press conference assured of victory, calling the Big East a weaker conference than the ACC.

“The game’s over – we won,” Big East player of the year junior forward Jeff Green said when asked after the game about the comments made by Dudley, the ACC player of the year. “We move on. Those comments that he made, before the game, he can’t say anything now because we got the `W’ on them. They don’t bother me at all now. I have the last laugh. We won.”

Dudley did all he could to back up his assertions, scoring 19 points – including 11 in the second half – and grabbing eight rebounds while playing all 40 minutes.

But Dudley’s star was outshone by Hibbert, who attempted just one field goal in the opening stanza, but then went 6-for-11 from the field and collected 10 rebounds after the break. Using his size to dominate the Eagles inside, Hibbert finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds for his ninth double-double of the year.

Green had an off night, scoring just 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting. But he did collect 12 boards and block five shots for just his second double-double of the year.

Overall, Green and Hibbert scored 13 of Georgetown’s final 19 points as the Hoyas won for the 17th time in 18 games.

Point totals aside, with just over seven minutes remaining, Green made arguably the most important play of the game. Flying out of nowhere to grab a Hibbert miss and slam it home, Green reversed momentum and gave the Hoyas their largest lead since midway through the first half.

“It was a relief after missing all those shots, to finally have one go down, especially in that type of game and that type of situation,” Green said. “Getting an offensive rebound and putting it back like that really turned the game around and got the momentum on our side.”

After Green’s huge dunk gave the Hoyas a four-point lead for the first time in the second period, emotions boiled over as Dudley and Georgetown sophomore guard Jessie Sapp got into each others’ faces and were dealt off-setting technical fouls.

“He threw the ball at me and I was like, `Man, stop throwing the ball at me. Let’s play ball,'” Sapp said of the confrontation with Dudley. “Then he got in my face and I got in his face and I just walked away.”

Aside from Green’s rebound and dunk, the Hoyas had another highlight reel-caliber play from Ewing. With just 42 second left in the game, Hibbert found Ewing on the baseline, who went up for a reverse dunk and was fouled by Dudley, putting the exclamation point on the Hoyas’ win.

“We heard Jared Dudley was saying stuff about how the Big East wasn’t good and I told Jessie last night, `Jessie, if I get a chance I’m going to dunk on him,'” Ewing said. “All I remember is, I saw Roy going up for the hook and I was really just trying to go in to get another rebound, and he just happened to find me right on the baseline and when I jumped I saw [Dudley] jump and I was thinking in my head, `Oh, this is my chance,’ and I was fortunate to get it.”

As for the showmanship of the reverse, Ewing said he did not even mean to do it.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. “I jumped kind of awkward and I tend to do reverse dunks when I do that.”

On the night the Hoyas shot 42.3 percent from the floor, their worst postseason performance. After shooting 5-for-5 and jumping out to 12-2 lead in the opening minutes of the contest, Georgetown looked listless as it made just four more field goals for rest of the opening stanza, letting the Eagles work their way back into the game and take the four-point lead into halftime.

After the break the Hoyas came out with more intensity, working the ball into Hibbert in the paint and letting him go to work against the smaller BC players. Green and Ewing both also played with more focus as the Hoyas’ frontcourt went to work, collecting 12 offensive rebounds and scoring 17 second-chance points in the second half.

“Obviously any win this time of year is a good win, but that’s a very good win against a very good team, particularly how the game played out,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “There was a lot we had to figure out, stick together and work our way through. What they were doing to us and our guys did a good job of not getting rattled. It’s good to move on.”

Georgetown moves on to the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive year and the 11th time overall, while the Commodores will be headed to the round of 16 for the first time since 2004 and just the fourth time in 20 seasons.

Tip-off in at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., is set for 9:40 p.m. Friday night.