COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Ursinus Men's Basketball team kept their momentum rolling as they completed their regular season with a resounding 95-70 win over Washington College on Senior Day Saturday at Helfferich Hall.
With the win, the Bears cap their regular season and secure the No. 3 seed in next week's Centennial Conference Tournament with a 17-8 overall record and 10-3 mark in Centennial play. They will host the No. 6 seed McDaniel on Tuesday night after the Green Terror rallied to defeat Muhlenberg 52-49 in a win-and-in scenario. Meanwhile, the Shoremen conclude their season at 10-15 overall and 0-13 in conference play.
Ursinus honored its three seniors:
Nick Nocito,
Mohamed Toure, and
Graham Eilberg before the game and the seniors had a major impact on the Bears dominance. Toure paced the game with 21 points and totaled five rebounds and four assists. He will finish the season leading the Centennial Conference in scoring for conference games behind his fifth 21+ point game in the last six. Nocito added 17 points behind going 5-of-8 from three-point range while tallying seven assists, four steals, and three rebounds. Junior
Luke Nieman recorded 20 points behind going 6-of-10 from three-point range and sophomore
Jamie Murphy registered 19 points, six rebounds, three steals, plus two assists.
The Bears and Shoremen traded blows early as neither team was able to fully pull away during the first 10 minutes of the game. Ursinus finally powered ahead with a 15-2 run after trailing 23-21 to go up 36-25 at the 4:36-mark of the first half. The run was all the Bears needed to gain control of the game as they went up 17 points at 46-29 with 1:39 left in the first half following a brilliant no-look pass from Nocito to Murphy on a Fastbreak.
Washington College brought the deficit down to 10 points at 51-40 in the first 1:13 of the second half before the Bears slammed the door shut early with a 15-5 run to go up 66-45 at the 13:36-mark. From there, Ursinus did not let its lead fall below 16 points the rest of the way and held a lead by at least 20 points for the final 10:16 after a three-pointer from Nieman to make it 74-52.
Ursinus shot 48.5 percent (33-of-68) from the field and drained a school record 17 three-pointers in the process to go 42.5% (17-of-40) from deep. The Bears went a near perfect 12-of-13 (92.3%) from the free throw line and held a slight 38-33 rebounding advantage. Meanwhile, the Shoremen shot 42.6 percent (26-of-61) from the field and 11-of-35 (31.4%) from three-point range. Washington went just 4-of-17 from deep in the second half and went 63.6 percent (7-of-11) from the free throw line.
The Bears will host McDaniel in the Centennial Conference First Round on Tuesday, February 24
th. Time will be determined on a Conference Call Monday morning.
