COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Ursinus Men's Basketball team opened the 2026-27 season with a convincing 87-62 win over Neumann in the opening game of the annual Bear Bash Tournament at Helfferich Hall on Friday night.
The Bears advance to the Championship Game of the Bear Bash Invitational for the third straight season since the first one was held in 2023-24. Neumann, an NCAA Tournament team from a year ago, will take on Schreiner in the Consolation game.
Junior
Jamie Murphy picked up right where he left off from last year with a career-high 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting with six rebounds, three assists, and two steals. Sophomore
Tomas Belaiter also set a career high with 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting with six rebounds and two assists. First-year
Bryce Peters impressed with 13 points in his collegiate debut behind going 3-of-3 from three-point range and grabbing four rebounds.
The Bears went wire-to-wire in the win as they started fast by scoring the first five points and built a 15-3 lead at the 13:51-mark. Ursinus only let its lead slip down into single digits when Neumann cut it down to 17-9 but countered with a 10-4 run to go up 27-13 at the 6:30-mark of the first quarter. Senior
Matthew Field scored five straight points to give the Bears their largest lead of the half at 35-17 at the 1:24-mark and Ursinus held a 36-19 lead at halftime.
To start the second half, Neumann cut the Bears lead down to 11 at 40-29 following a 10-4 run to start but Ursinus staved off the early run and went up 20 points for the first time in the game at 55-35 with 12:34 left in regulation. The Knights got the deficit down to 11 points again at 62-51 with a 16-7 run with 7:02 remaining. However, Neumann could not get back into the single digits and Ursinus pulled away, leading by as many 25 points to close out the game on a 19-8 run.
Ursinus shot 51.6 percent (32-of-62) from the field and just 25 percent (5-of-20) from three-point range. The Bears went 18-of-23 (78.3%) from the free throw line and held a 45-35 rebounding advantage. Meanwhile, the Knights shot 32.8 percent (20-of-61) from the field after going just 22.6 percent in the first half. Neuman made just one three-pointer on 10 attempts and went just 61.8 percent (21-of-34) from the free throw line.
The Bears return to action tomorrow, November 7
th as they will host Catholic in the Bear Bash Championship game at 5:00 p.m.
