Noah Webster was not a basketball fan, but were there an entry in the dictionary for “Playing Down to Your Opponent,” Georgetown’s 12-point sleepwalk against St. John’s would serve as the perfect example.

When you beat a team by 32 points in your first attempt, it’s hard to come up with a fitting sequel, but the Hoyas could have done much better than this lackluster late-season showing.

All told, this was the same St. John’s team that “showed up” on Jan. 30 at Madison Square Garden. The same team the Hoyas held to 14 first half points and thumped by 32. The same team that let Vernon Macklin score 18 points.

“That [game] was just a blip,” Thompson said when asked to compare last month’s knockout to Wednesday night’s scuffle. “Things fell in line that night. I would have liked for it to have been more like last time, but no one was expecting it.”

For most of Wednesday night’s contest, Georgetown looked as deflated as that basketball John Thompson III keeps on his desk to remind his players of their basketball mortality. They let the smaller Johnnies slam them around on the boards. They shot 44.4 percent from the field and misfired on well over half their attempts from beyond the arc. DaJuan Summers missed two dunks. Vernon Macklin attempted the first ever rainbow-hook from 10 feet out. Georgetown was up only four at half – even though St. John’s had handed them 13 turnovers.

Thompson will say that he doesn’t pay attention to margins, that a win is a win regardless, but when you are beating a team by 27 at half time once and manage to be up only four the second time, you can’t help but be concerned.

You fully expected Georgetown to come out with their best No-More-Mr.-Nice-Guy routine after the break. Didn’t happen. They turned the ball over three times in to start the second half and let Anthony Mason Jr. hold his own personal tryout for the 2009 Slam Dunk Contest.

It felt like someone had vacuumed the vibe out of Verizon Center before tip off. Maybe it was the 9 P.M. start time, or midterms, or the fact that Bon Jovi was scheduled to play here Thursday night and that that would be way too much excitement for one arena in the span of 24 hours. With the exception of Patrick Ewing Jr.’s second half slam dunk/karate kick over Mason Jr., the decibel level never climbed above “low hum,” and even the P.A. announcer was off his game, referring to a mysterious hybrid Hoya named “JonathaDaJuan Summers” after Summers nailed a three in the second half.

There just wasn’t the same electricity in the air that usually accompanies Big East play. That’s what happens when a 10-16 bottom feeder comes calling at a time of the year when all Georgetown wants to do is just get to the conference tournament at the top of the Big East.

The atmosphere was almost as dull as it was in the Garden four Wednesdays before, that nightmare Norm Roberts would love to forget.

“They deserved to beat us the way they did,” Robert said when asked about the team’s first meeting. “We didn’t hit shots, and they made every shot.”

This time around, Roberts’ team took a big step towards wiping the mid-season wipeout from their memory.

“I thought our guys battled,” Roberts said. “This is a tough place to play and [Georgetown] is a very good basketball team.”

Thompson said that he felt Roy Hibbert – who scored only four points in the first half – had been too soft in the early going and had to remind his star senior to be more aggressive. These were, after all, the same dudes he slung around like rag dolls in the first meeting.

To his credit, Hibbert admitted afterward that he has to do a better job of shouldering the load.

“It’s a learning experience,” Hibbert said. “But I am a senior now and I have to take that responsibility on my own.”

The moral of this story for Georgetown has to come from Summers’ line: 21 points, five trifectas, and suffering through the embarrassment of clanking a pair of sure-fire dunks.

“It just happens sometimes. That’s all you can say,” Summers said, kind of smiling, kind of not. “Just think about the next play. I don’t usually miss dunks.”

Summers didn’t know it at the time, but he was echoing what his coach had said a few minutes before hand.

“They can’t let one bad play affect the next one,” Thompson said. “We’re in the stretch run right here, and I think that this group has so much room for improvement. I think that they have to take pride in improving.”

The Hoyas cannot afford to show up sloppy in Milwaukee Saturday. Marquette is no St. John’s, and there will be enough electrical current in the air at the Bradley Center to make even JT III’s hair stand on end. The Eagles are 14-1 at home and are winners of five straight.

“It’s going to be a tough game in a hostile environment,” Thompson said, adding that he does not have fond memories of his one trip to Milwaukee, a 57-51 Georgetown loss in 2006. “We’ll figure it out. We just have to hope that [Marquette is] off.”

And that, unlike tonight, the Hoyas aren’t.

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