WASHINGTON—With Otto Porter on the bench nursing a sore knee, the player known as DSR put on Georgetown‘s best freshman scoring performance in 17 years.D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera put in 33 points Wednesday night as the No. 11 Hoyas, no longer the team that relies on Porter and Markel Starks to lead the way every game, routed DePaul 90-66 to move back into a tie for first place in the Big East.Smith-Rivera went 10 for 12 from the field, 8 for 10 from the free-throw line and made 5 of 6 3-pointers, scoring the most points by a Georgetown freshman since Victor Page’s 34 in the 1996 Big East tournament. The Hoyas (20-4, 10-3) won their eighth straight and pulled even again with Syracuse and Marquette atop the conference. They shot 63 percent and scored a season-high in points, handling with relative ease a possible trap game ahead of Saturday’s much-anticipated final Big East visit to No. 8 Syracuse. Brandon Young scored 16 points to lead the Blue Demons (11-15, 2-11), who have lost 12 in a row to Georgetown and 40 straight to Top 25 teams. DePaul was coming off of a win over Rutgers on Saturday and was hoping to win back-to-back Big East games for the first time in five years. The Blue Demons hung with the Hoyas for about 14 minutes, thanks mainly to dominance on the offensive boards, but coach Oliver Purnell said a couple of easy misses under the basket hurt his team’s morale.

“We let frustration set in instead of digging in,” Purnell said. “And that kind of fueled Georgetown.”