CINCINNATI – Georgetown’s modesty is getting a little hard to believe. All season long the Hoyas and Head Coach John Thompson III have deflected praise and instead focused on how they can still improve. Rather than being satisfied with their performance, the Hoyas have talked of how they are still maturing. But after Wednesday night’s 75-65 win over Cincinnati (10-17, 1-12 Big East), No. 12 Georgetown’s humility is beginning to sound hollow. The Hoyas (21-5, 11-2) are now the owners of a 10-game in-conference win streak and a share of first place in the Big East – not to mention a top-15 national ranking – yet they still will not admit how good they are. “I don’t think we’re there yet,” junior forward Jeff Green, who led all scorers with 21 points, said after the victory. “We made a lot of mistakes. Cincinnati got a lot of rebounds and a lot of points in transition. We still need to grow up. We’ve got to trim those things down.” Thompson also focused on the holes in the Hoyas’ win. “We didn’t do a good job of guarding the three-point line and then we shoot 15-for-21 from the foul line. So to be able to walk away with a win, yeah, I’m very happy with the victory,” Thompson said. “Now we just have to improve.” Georgetown’s victory at Cincinnati was by no means perfect, and the Hoyas did commit their fair share of mistakes. The Hoyas had 16 turnovers which the Bearcats converted into 18 points, and Georgetown got beat on the boards 31-27 – including 19-9 on the offensive glass – by a much-smaller Cincinnati team; the fact that the Hoyas could still come away with a win despite their mistakes, however, just goes to show how dangerous the team is. “They can hurt you in so many ways,” Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin said of the Hoyas. “They shoot it at four positions and the other guy is 7-foot-2 and we’re 6-foot-5. It was a very tall order for us to try to keep these guys in check offensively.” For the second-straight game, Green led the Hoyas in scoring, going 6-for-10 from the field and 7-of-8 from the charity stripe. Green was the only member of Georgetown’s formidable frontcourt to finish in double-digits, with the majority of the Hoyas’ offensive coming from the backcourt. Guards junior Jonathan Wallace and sophomore Jesse Sapp had 17 and 14 points, respectively, the second double-digit scoring effort from Sapp in as many games. Yet arguably the Hoyas’ biggest contribution from the backcourt came from freshman guard Jeremiah Rivers. Having hit just one three pointer this season, Rivers usually does not take a shot even when he has an open look. But left completely alone at the end of the second half, and with no teammates open for a pass, Rivers called the Bearcats’ bluff and nailed two-straight treys to tie the game and give the Hoyas their first lead since the opening minutes of the game. “That was huge,” Thompson said of River’s back-to-back threes, “because, one, we were down and, two, they decided not to play him. They weren’t guarding him at all. His man was doubling Roy and so he got two open looks and he banged them.” Junior center Roy Hibbert, who has been the centerpiece of Georgetown’s offense this season, was a non-factor for the second game in a row. Hibbert had just seven points on 3-for-4 shooting, although he did pull down nine rebounds. After torching Cincinnati for a career-high 26 points in the first meeting between the two squads – an 82-67 Hoya victory at Verizon Center on Jan. 27 – the Bearcats made a concerted effort to limit his touches in Fifth-Third Arena and executed effectively. “Last time, we weren’t getting to him quick enough,” Cronin said. “One thing Hibbert does is turn and score without dribbling the ball. . He knows what he’s good at and he’ll just catch and turn and score, so we had to get there early on him. Our guys did a great job of limiting his touches. He had three baskets and one of them was a 17-footer.” Freshman guard Deonta Vaughn paced the Bearcats with 19 points, although he did so with an inefficient shooting performance, going just 5-for-21 overall and 3-for-13 from downtown. Junior forward John Williamson was the only other Bearcat in double-figures, scoring 15 points, but he also committed five turnovers. As a team, Cincinnati committed 17 turnovers, which Cronin cited as the cause of their downfall on Wednesday. “We can’t turn the ball over 17 times and beat maybe the best team in our league,” Cronin said. “I can just tell you, turnovers killed us.” For two teams moving in two different directions, Wednesday’s game was surprisingly close. Cincinnati – in last place in the Big East and on a nine-game skid – led for most of the first half and hung within single-digits for much of the second half as well. The Bearcats made their first five three-pointers, but the league-leading Hoyas chipped away at the Bearcats’ lead and took a six-point lead into halftime, 37-31, after a 13-2 run over the final four minutes of the opening stanza. In the second half, Cincinnati again went on a run, pulling to within three, 42-39, in under five minutes and then holding that three-point margin for nearly the next four minutes. But at the 12-minute mark Georgetown went on a run of its own, opening up an 11-point lead on back-to-back baskets by Sapp, and Cincinnati would never get closer then seven for the rest of the way. The Hoyas will need everybody to contribute once again on Saturday and must cut down on the mistakes if the team wants to extend its streak to 11 games. The 10th-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers (24-4, 11-2 Big East) come to Verizon Center this weekend and it will be a battle for Big East supremacy. Tip-off on Saturday is set for 2 p.m. at Verizon Center.