PISCATAWAY, N.J. – The RAC, Rutgers University’s tiny on-campus basketball arena, can be a daunting place to play – usually for the visitors. But recently it has been the Scarlet Knights themselves who don’t feel at home at the Louis Brown Athletic Center.

On Wednesday night, Rutgers (8-10, 1-4 Big East) dropped its third straight game in the RAC, losing an ugly game to Georgetown (12-5, 2-2), 68-54, that was not nearly as close as the final score.

“It was really good to win tonight, because obviously we lost two straight,” Georgetown junior center Roy Hibbert said. “We needed to bounce back quickly and these are two road games that we know we can win, so we have to go out hard.”

The win for the Hoyas was a much needed one for a team coming off back-to-back conference losses to Villanova and Pittsburgh. On the front end of a two-game road swing through New Jersey – Georgetown heads up the turnpike to take on Seton Hall tonight – the Hoyas got off on the right foot with a convincing win that demonstrated why they are in the top six in the nation in scoring defense, holding the Knights to just 13 first-half points on 17.4 percent shooting.

“There are going to be some tough times, but we’re just going to keep working, keep playing and going after it and keep defending,” Rutgers Head Coach Fred Hill said. “Hopefully we start to get a little more confidence and get a little better offensively and that’s all you can do.”

The freshmen were the true stars of the game for the Hoyas Wednesday night. Playing as a group for much of the game, the three freshmen combined to play a season-high 66 minutes and notched 30 points as a class. Forward DaJuan Summers’ game-high 17 points put him one point shy of a career high. Guard Jeremiah Rivers tied his own career high of six points, and center Vernon acklin made two layups in the opening minutes to give the Hoyas the spark they needed to open up with a big first-half lead.

“I think we played well,” Summers said of the performance of the freshman class. “I think we did the things we set out to do in the pre-game, so I think it was successful.”

Hibbert also had an impressive game for Georgetown, scoring 16 points and collecting nine rebounds. He got off to a slow start – getting stripped of the ball on the Hoyas’ first offensive possession and then getting outrebounded by the undersized Knights on the defensive glass – and was promptly benched for Macklin, but he looked like a different player when he returned. Hibbert was aggressive for the rest of the match, hitting shots from all angles around the basket and crashing the boards at both ends of the floor.

“I thought Roy was good today,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “I thought he started off a little slow. He was bumbling around a little bit and having a hard time finding his way and then he settled into a rhythm.”

The Scarlet Knights, coming off a brutal loss to DePaul in which they scored just 37 points, had a much better showing on Wednesday night. Led by sophomore forward JR Inman, who scored 13 points, Rutgers put four players in double-figures and outscored the Hoyas 41-40 in the second half. The Knights also got open looks and grabbed 14 offensive boards over the larger Hoyas, but shots just would not fall for Rutgers.

“I felt that we had good looks, but I didn’t feel that we stepped up to them, especially in the first half,” Hill said. “We talked about that a little bit at half time. In the second half I thought that we made plays and big players make plays. I thought that we took the dribble penetration when it was there, and we got a couple layups, and we got a couple dishes inside and we got to the free throw line.”

Georgetown, once again, hit a high percentage of its shots, shooting 57.8 percent from the floor. The Hoyas had 40 points in the paint and also dished out assists on 13 of their 26 baskets, despite not getting many of their famous backdoor cuts. The Hoyas did have 12 turnovers – but only three of those came in the second half – and the Knights were only able to collect eight points off of them.

Hoya juniors forward Jeff Green and guard Jonathan Wallace – Georgetown’s second and third leading scorers respectively – had off-nights, each making just two fields goals, and were held well below their season averages in points, which on any other night would have hurt the team. But against struggling Rutgers, the Hoyas were able to overcome their stars’ low outputs.

“We just try to work through it,” Hibbert said of nights when players struggle offensively. “We’re not going to let it hold us back. We getting older – my class, the junior class – has been through a lot, so we have to believe in this team.”

Georgetown will look to take the momentum from the Rutgers win and carry it over to its game against Seton Hall tonight. The last time the Hoyas had a one-day turnaround, they lost to the Villanova Wildcats, but the Hoyas say they will be prepared after just a short rest in New Jersey.

“I actually like short turnarounds,” Hibbert said.

Tip-off with the Pirates is set for 7:30 p.m. tonight at Continental Airlines Arena.