All season long the Hoyas have called junior swingman Tyler Crawford their emotional leader.

But Saturday night he was more than that, hitting key shots from beyond the arc and giving Georgetown (7-3) the spark of energy it needed in the second half to put away Winston-Salem State University (1-13) in McDonough Gymnasium, 76-32.

Sluggish in the first half, the Hoyas were unable to pull away from the Rams despite stretching out a lead to as many as 17 points midway through the period. Georgetown could not get defensive stops – Winston-Salem State’s 26 percent shooting was more a product of its own anemic offense – and poor Georgetown three-point shooting on the other end (3-for-14) let the Rams climb back to within nine points going into the second half.

To the 2,228 fans in McDonough, the lead seemed comfortable, and the Hoyas had clearly out-played the overmatched Rams. But coming out of halftime, WSSU went on a 5-0 run and visions of Georgetown’s last performance in its on-campus arena were suddenly dashing in the minds of the Hoya faithful. In that outing, then-No. 8 and undefeated Georgetown played a horrific second half and fell to unranked and undersized Old Dominion 75-62.

This time, Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III called a 30-second timeout to stop the Rams’ run and inserted Crawford into the game. On the first play out of the break, the Hoyas’ heart and soul hit a clean three-pointer to kill the Winston-Salem run and stretch the lead back out to nine.

Crawford’s trey kicked off a 30-1 Georgetown run which put away the Rams for good. Fittingly, Crawford scored the Hoyas’ last points of the streak on another silky-smooth three.

“Tyler and Patrick [Ewing, Jr.] gave us a key,” Thompson said. “Put those two guys in a game and all of a sudden we started getting stops, we started getting rebounds. The energy that they bring, not only is it infectious as it relates to their teammates, but just the energy and caring that they bring is tremendous.”

Crawford finished the night 4-of-5 from behind the arc, but he was hardly the only Hoya to come alive in the second half. Freshman forward DaJuan Summers and sophomore guard Jessie Sapp poured in 10 points each (both had 14 total on the night) and junior center Roy Hibbert added eight in the second stanza to give the Hoyas’ their largest margin of victory (44 points) since their 47-point defeating of Grambling State in November 2003, 83-36.

The Rams – in just their second year of transitioning from Division II to Division I basketball – were led by freshman guard Darius Floyd, who had 11. No other Winston-Salem player scored more than five points, and the team as a whole made just four baskets from the floor in the entire second half

The one Hoya noticeably absent from the Hoyas’ second-half run was Georgetown’s most reliable player, junior forward Jeff Green. Green came out for Crawford during the early timeout and never returned to the floor, playing a season-low 20 minutes, just three of which came in the second half. Green sat out for no specific reason, Thompson said, but that the players on the floor were playing well together and he felt no need to break their rhythm.

“Jeff Green is not going to pout about anything,” Thompson said of Green’s response to sitting for the second half. “He’s going to go finish his papers and his tests and come back and play better.”

The Hoyas return to action once exams are completed on Wednesday night against Towson University. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Verizon Center.