BALTIMORE, Md. – The Ursinus Men's Basketball team was unable to overcome a first half deficit and hot-shooting Johns Hopkins squad as they were defeated on the road by the Blue Jays 91-58 in Centennial Conference play on Saturday afternoon.
 
 
Sophomore Nick Nocito led the Bears with a team-high 11 points behind hitting a trio of three-pointers and junior Marlin Wise added 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field.
 
 
Nocito hit a three-pointer after the Blue Jays scored the first four points to make it a 4-3 game at the 18:20-mark of the first half. Johns Hopkins responded by scoring seven straight points to go up 10-3 at the 14:02-mark of the first half. The Blue Jays held the Bears without a field goal for five minutes until first-year Luke Nieman ended the stretch with a jumper at the 13:20-mark. Johns Hopkins stretched its advantage back out to eight points at 18-10 with 10:35 left in the first half and Nocito knocked down another three-pointer on the Bears next possession to make it an 18-13 game. Ursinus hit another cold stretch from the field which allowed the Blue Jays to score eight straight points and take a 26-13 advantage at the 8:09-mark. Five straight points from the Bears knocked the deficit back into single digits at 26-17, but the Blue Jays closed the last seven minutes of the first half with a 17-8 run to go up 43-35 at halftime. Ursinus got a pair of early three-pointers in the second half from junior Jaiden Jakubowski and Wise before the Blue Jays continued their success into the second half as they stretched their lead over 20 points. Ursinus was unable to cut the margin below 20 points during the final 11:50 of the contest.
 
 
The Bears shot just 29.3 percent (17-of-58) from the field while going 21.4 percent (6-of-21) from three-point range and 75 percent (18-of-24) from the free throw line. The Blue Jays shot 50.8 percent (33-of-65) from the field and 42.4 percent (14-of-33) from three-point range. Johns Hopkins went 11-of-17 (64.7%) from the free throw line and held a 44-33 rebounding advantage.
 
 
Ursinus return to action on Tuesday, January 9th as they will host Washington College at 7:00 p.m. in their first home game of the 2024 calendar year.