EWING, N.J. – The Ursinus Men's Basketball team opened their weekend at TCNJ with a resounding 90-61 win over Gwynedd Mercy on Friday evening in the opening game of the Lions Greg Grant Tip-Off Invitational.
The Bears moved to 2-1 in the opening start of the season while the Griffins fell to 0-2.
Five Bears finished in double figures for scoring led by junior
Jamie Murphy with a game-high 20 points off 7-of-12 shooting while totaling eight rebounds, four assists, and two steals. First-year
Bryce Peters impressed with his first collegiate double-double of 16 points and 12 rebounds while sophomore
Jasper Buck registered a career-high 19 points with three assists plus three steals. Sophomore
Lucas Mushrush also hit a career-high with 16 points off the bench and grabbed six rebounds and classmate
Trevor Toulson rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points.
The game tied up twice in the opening minute and a half before the Bears broke ahead at 11-7 at the 15:39-mark. Ursinus led 19-13 at the 10:44-mark and broke open the game with a 14-4 run to go up 33-17 at the 5:28-mark. The Bears extended their lead out to as many as 20 points at 44-24 with 1:14 left in the first half and led 46-29 at halftime. Ursinus never saw its lead dip into single digits the rest of the game but the Griffins worked the deficit down to 56-45 at the 11:34-mark of the second half. Ursinus clamped down on the rally by using a 15-2 run to go up 71-47 at the 6:51-mark. The Bears continued to pull away and maintained a 20+ point lead for the final six minutes of the game.
Ursinus shot 44.8 percent (30-of-67) from the field and 33.3 percent (10-of-33) from three-point range. The Bears shot 74.1 percent (20-of-27) from the free throw line and held a 52-30 rebounding advantage that led to a 16-6 edge in second chance points. Ursinus got 20 points off 18 Griffins turnovers and 31 points from its bench. Meanwhile, the Griffins shot 35 percent (21-of-60) and just 13.8 percent (4-of-29) from three-point range. Gwynedd Mercy shot 62.5 percent (15-of-24) from the free throw line and got 27 points from its bench.
The Bears return to action tomorrow, November 14
th as they will take on the host TCNJ at 5:00 p.m. in the final game of the invitational.
