COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Ursinus Men's Basketball team dropped an 83-70 contest to No. 24 Johns Hopkins on Saturday afternoon in Centennial Conference play at Helfferich Hall.
Senior
Trevor Wall led the Bears with a team-high 15 points while first-year
Luke Nieman shined off the bench with 14 points behind going 5-of-8 from the field and 4-of-7 from three-point range. Junior
Marlin Wise and sophomore
Nick Nocito each tallied 10 points while Nocito added a team-high four assists.
The Blue Jays scored the first four points of the contest, but the Bears hung tough throughout the first half. Urisnus rallied to tie the game four different times in the first half. The Bears deadlocked the score at 17 following back-to-back buckets with 10:42 left in the first half before Johns Hopkins heated up with a 12-1 run to go up 29-18 with 8:14 left in the first half. Ursinus drew within five points of the Blue Jays at 40-35 during halftime following a layup from Wall off an inbound pass from Nocito with five seconds left in the first half. Sophomore
Cole Grubbs hit a jumper in the opening minute of the first half to narrow the score down to four points at 41-37, but that would be as the close as the Bears would get the rest of the contest. Ursinus hung tough with the Blue Jays throughout the second half before Johns Hopkins broke a six-point lead open with a 10-0 run at the 7:02-mark.
Ursinus shot 40 percent (26-of-65) from the field and just 29.2 percent (7-of-29) from three-point range. The Bears shot a solid 11-of-13 (84.6%) from the free throw line and forced 15 Blue Jay turnovers. Meanhile, Johns Hopkins shot 49.1 percent (28-of-57) from the field behind shooting 58.3 percent in the second half. The Blue Jays went 11-of-26 (42.3%) from three-point range and 16-of-26 (61.6%) from the free throw line. Johns Hopkins held a 42-32 edge in rebounds but just a 15-12 advantage in offensive rebounds. Brayden Fagbemi stole the show with a game-high 30 points behind going 9-of-16 from the field and 6-of-12 from deep. John Windley added 26 points on 7-of-14 shooting and 4-of-7 from three-point range.
The Bears return to action on Wednesday, January 31st as they will host Franklin & Marshall at 6:00 p.m.
