Playing their first regular season game on campus in three years, the Hoyas did exactly what their faithful on hand expected them to do against a less talented team. Before a crowd of 2,194 at the very intimate confines of McDonough Arena on Saturday afternoon, they rolled to an easy 58-40 victory over the Spartans of San Jose State.

With the win, Georgetown improved to 4-2 on the season. The Hoyas now have a nine-day break during the final exam period before they travel to Hawaii for the Rainbow Classic, which begins December 20. San Jose State, a Western Athletic Conference (WAC) team that has had only two 20-win seasons in the last 59 years and who was playing its first game ever against a Big East school, fell to 3-4 in 2004-05.

While the crowd was significantly smaller than the 12,401 that saw the Hoyas fall to No. 1 Illinois Thursday night at MCI Center, it often seemed just as loud in the small gym, especially with students filling an entire side of the court opposite the team’s benches.

“The students have been really good,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. It’s good to hear them sitting there supporting their classmates.”

Georgetown was not able to get off to the hot shooting start that it had in the last couple of games, but it was able to work through the early offensive struggles by shutting down the hapless Spartans on the defensive end and dominating the rebounding battle on both ends of the court. Despite shooting only 41 percent from the floor in the first half and 4-12 from beyond the three-point line, the Hoyas entered the locker room with a comfortable 32-16 lead.

“Regardless of what is going on on the offensive end of the floor, you have to be precise, you have to be crisp, you have to work together on the defensive end,” Thompson said. “We have to understand that we have to be efficient at both ends.”

They outrebounded the Spartans 21-10 in the first half, including a decisive 10-0 on the offensive glass. Georgetown also held San Jose State to seven field goals on 19 shots, taking firm control of the game with a 13-2 run in the second part of the first half to extend the lead from 12-9 to 25-11. The Spartans would get no closer than nine points during the rest of the half.

Sophomore guard Ray Reed highlighted the run for the Hoyas with back-to-back buckets for his first four points of the season. Reed, who missed five weeks of practice in October and November with a foot injury, would finish the game with a team-high 10 points in 19 minutes of action.

Overall, it was a very balanced scoring effort for Georgetown as Reed was the only player to score in double digits and 10 different Hoyas scored. Junior forward Brandon Bowman, the Hoyas’ leading scorer coming into the game, scored only nine points in 22 minutes, and junior guard Ashanti Cook played only 20 minutes and scored five points. Freshman center Roy Hibbert, a clear fan favorite at McDonough, led Georgetown in both assists with five and rebounds with eight.

“Roy’s not a mascot,” Thompson said. “For us to have success this year, he has to keep getting better. He works very hard, and you hear coaches say it all the time – first guy in the gym, last to leave – and he’s one of those guys. His size causes a dilemma for people, and his passing will one day cause a dilemma for people.”

The lopsided margin allowed Thompson to empty his bench toward the end of the game. Sophomore forward Sead Dizdarevic scored his first points of the season in the final minutes of the game, and walk-on junior guard Ryan Beal saw his first action of the season in the last minute of the game.

As the Hoyas enter a nine-day break while the players take their final exams, Thompson is cautiously optimistic about what he has seen in the first six games of the season.

“We got a long way to go, but we are making progress.”