Miami has used a good offense and tough defense to win this season. On Saturday, the Hurricanes relied heavily on the latter.

Dewan Huell finished with a double-double of 15 points and 12 rebounds as No. 6 Miami defeated George Washington 59-50 in a nonconference matinee in Washington, D.C.

The Hurricanes improved to 9-0, the first time they've won nine straight games to begin a season in 10 years. They limited George Washington (5-6) to only five baskets and 15 points in the first half, 30 percent shooting overall and never trailed.

"I thought our defense in the first half was really outstanding," Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. "I thought the second half, our defense on the first shot was pretty good, but they offensive rebounded like crazy ... but, we had a nice cushion of 17 points at halftime, and we were able to kind of just stay in front."

The Colonials finished with 17 offensive rebounds but only 13 second-chance points as they kept missing shots, especially when trying to rally in the second half.

However, those chances didn't come in the first half, thanks mostly to the Miami defense.

"The key was to hold them to one possession and not let them get multiple opportunities at the rim," Huell said.

Huell was a force at both ends of the floor. When Miami decided to go inside, the 6-foot-11 sophomore forward was usually the player it looked to -- and he scored some key points in the second half as the Colonials tried to rally from that 17-point deficit.

Lonnie Walker IV added 13 points for the Hurricanes, and Dejan Vasiljevic, a sophomore guard from Australia, pitched in with 10.

Sophomore guard Jair Bolden led the Colonials with 13 points. Senior guard Yuta Watanabe has been the team's top scorer, but he always had a hand in his face and finished with only nine points, thanks to 3-for-12 shooting.

George Washington never could do much on offense as Miami removed the suspense pretty quickly. The Hurricanes went on an 11-0 run that gave them a 13-2 lead and they never trailed again.

The Colonials cut the lead to 16-9 but the Hurricanes then blew it open after that and rolled to a 32-15 halftime lead.

Miami held George Washington to those five first-half baskets as the Colonials shot just 19 percent (5-for-27) from the field in the first 20 minutes.

Terry Nolan Jr. made a 3-pointer for the Colonials with 10:11 left in the half but the Colonials made only one more basket until halftime.

George Washington has dropped two straight games after winning three in a row.

"We wanted to hunker down and slow them down and make them methodical as opposed to going fast and going downhill and I thought we did that for the most part," George Washington coach Maurice Joseph said. "They just made more shots and shot better than we did."

NOTES: Miami came into Saturday's game against George Washington as one of the six remaining unbeaten teams in the country. ... This is the start of a six-game road trip for Miami. The Hurricanes are headed to Hawaii next for a tournament. They will play just one home game over a 42-day period. ... This is the second time this season that George Washington played a ranked team, the other was an 83-64 loss to then-No. 15 Xavier in Las Vegas on Nov. 23.