BALTIMORE, MD – Junior Jimmy Hammer scored 20 points to lead the Johns Hopkins men's basketball team to a crucial, 67-50, win over visiting McDaniel in Centennial Conference (CC) action Wednesday night. The win, combined with a loss by Gettysburg, clinched a CC playoff bid for the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays improve to 14-10 overall and 11-6 in the CC while the Green Terror slip to 17-7 overall and 12-5 in the league.
Nick Perugino hit a pair of free throws at the 9:30-mark in the first half to cut Hopkins lead to five. Hopkins answered with a 19-4 run to the end the half and take a 40-20 lead into the locker room. Three straight free throws from sophomore Niko Kotoulas and Hammer got the run going and it was fueled by four straight three-points by the Blue Jays, including a pair from Hammer. Junior Luke Chambers put the punctuation on the run with a tip-in at the buzzer as JHU doubled up McDaniel in the first half.
The teams traded buckets to open the half before the Blue Jays put together a 7-2 spurt to push out to a 49-24 lead on a three-pointer from sophomore Gene Williams. Wesley Brooks answered with a drive and lay-up that ignited a 9-1 run that saw the Green Terror trim the deficit to 17 points midway through the second half. The Blue Jays came right back with buckets from senior Connor McIntyre and junior George Bugarinovic followed by a triple from Hammer and just like that the lead was back to 24 with 6:54 to play. McDaniel was able to get with in 16 but that would be as close as the visitors could get as Hopkins took the 17-point win.
It was tightly contested early as the lead see-sawed back-and-forth in the game's opening seven minutes. Trailing by three after a Jimmy Cranwell lay-up, Matt Billups hit one in off the glass followed by a Hammer bucket from downtown and Hopkins led 14-12. A Bugarinovic lay-up pushed the lead to four, but Phillip Perry trimmed that deficit in half with a lay-up of his own. Williams answered with a three-pointer, followed by an Austin Vasiliadis drive and score to push the lead to seven. Perugino would cut it back to five with his free throws at 9:30, but as it turned out, it was all Hopkins for the remainder of the half.
Hammer finished with a game-high 20 points, his fifth game of the season with 20 or more points. He shot 4-of-6 from three-point and was 6-of-6 from the line to go with four boards in the win. Bugarinovic added 12 points and eight rebounds while handing out five assists and blocking three shots. McIntyre chipped in nine points, two assists and three blocks – making him seven shy of the school single season record for blocks (65). Brooks was the lone Green Terror in double figures as he finished with 11 points. Hopkins shot 53.5 percent from the field for the game and 50.0 percent from three-point.
Hopkins closes out the regular season on Saturday, February 22 at Washington College. Tip-off is set for 4:00 pm at the Cain Athletic Center. A win, coupled with a Franklin & Marshall loss on Saturday, would secure the number three seed and a first-round bye in the CC Tournament.