By Mike Vorkunov

Just four and a half minutes into the second half, Rutgers was already at its tipping point. Four days earlier they were on the brunt end of a big run to start the second half that effectively knocked them out of the game. Their own coach gave them all the bulletin board material they could ever need by calling them soft for taking a hit and not responding.

Now, after a 13-3 run right out of the half by No. 22 Georgetown to open up a 16-point lead, it was up to them whether they wanted a repeat showing. Instead the Scarlet Knights made a valiant comeback.

But in the Big East that’s not good enough. Especially when the team on the other side is just as desperate.

Rutgers cut the lead down to four points halfway through the half but that would be as close as they got. Austin Freeman went off, scoring 15 points in the final ten minutes of the game on the way to game-high 25 points, and helped lead the Hoyas to a 74-65 victory at the RAC.

It was an indicator of what life is like for a Rutgers team with an undermanned roster, a shortened rotation and a small margin for error. Even in a game where they showed the mettle that was missing at Connecticut, it was still not enough.

“We’re competing with those guys,” said Jonathan Mitchell. “The UConn game I just think the second half we had a mental breakdown and we packed it in. [Today] we fought for all 40 minutes. It was just that we have a small margin of error with this team, being undermanned and undersized. One or two mistakes are costly with us. We had a few in the second half and it was tough for us to get back in it.”

After James Beatty hit a three-pointer to make it a 47-43 lead, Freeman promptly retorted with one of his own. Less than two minutes later he goaded Mike Poole into contact and a foul on a three-point shot with less than five seconds remaining on the shot clock. Freeman would hit all three free throws and extend the lead to ten points.

That would be emblematic of how Georgetown (13-5, 2-4 Big East) spent the remainder of the game, working their offense, working the shot clock and working over the Knights.

“It seems that the top tier teams in the Big East, they get you to ten seconds and under, they put the chokehold on you,” said Rice. “Right now we’re not physical enough to do that so we have to work on that.”

Gilvydas Biruta led Rutgers (10-7, 1-4) with 14 points. He was taken out of the starting lineup as a result of his play against Connecticut with Rice hoping the freshman would react to the stimulus.

“He felt sorry for himself after the UConn game a little bit,” said the coach. “I just wanted to wake him up by not starting him. I thought he responded very well.”

The Knights, just like Biruta, made their adjustments from their last time out but it was not enough.

Mitchell scored 13 points and Beatty contributed 12 points. Mike Coburn and Dane Miller added nine points each. But the Hoyas had all three parts of their acclaimed troika show up to support Freeman’s big second half.

Chris Wright scored 15 points and Jason Clark added 13 points. All three had been struggling of late, as had Georgetown as they dropped four of their first five conference games.

“It is related,” said Hoyas coach John Thompson III. “It is really good to have these two guys back. If we could have won and they were in a shooting slump, I would take that, but it is related. We need these guys. The way this team is put together, Chris (Wright), Austin (Freeman) and Jason (Clark) are going to have to play well for us. That’s not to say we don’t have other options in the locker room, but we can’t go through a stretch where all of them are slightly out of sync.”

Faced with a more talented opponent and always burdened with a slight margin for error, Rutgers made too many mistakes.

“It is tough because we can’t beat ourselves,” said Miller. “Sometimes we’ll turn the ball over a couple of times and then we’ll watch film, either the first half or the second half we’ll have two turnovers. We basically won the second half. It’s just that what we did in the first half or the second half that really stopped us from really winning the game.”

Follow Mike Vorkunov on Twitter: @Mike_Vorkunov