The Basics

• Score: Johns Hopkins-82, Marymount-60

• Records: JHU (1-0) • MU (0-1)

• Location: Baltimore, MD • Goldfarb Gym

• The Short Story: Johns Hopkins' starters combined for 79 points to lead the men's basketball team to an 82-60 win over visiting Marymount on Wednesday night in both teams' season-openers. The game marked the debut of head coach Josh Loeffler.  

How it Happened

• Hopkins trailed 18-17 when junior Michael Gardner drained a three-pointer to put the Blue Jays back on top with 4:41 to play. As it turned out, that was the last lead change in the game. Junior Daniel Vila followed Gardner's trey with back-to-back layups to put Hopkins up 24-18 less than a minute later.

• Marymount battled back and made it a one-point game with 18.8 seconds to play on an Ibrahim Kamara three-point play. Hopkins brought the ball up the court and with time winding down, freshman Conner Delaney found classmate Joey Kern in the corner and he drained a triple to send JHU to the half with a 31-27 lead.

• The Blue Jays came out firing to start the second half and used a 23-8 run to push out to a 54-35 lead by the 11:11-mark. Kern opened the second half the same way he ended the first, hitting from downtown to push the lead to seven. The teams traded buckets over the ensuing three and a half minutes and Hopkins led 43-34 with 15:46 to play. Kern scored on a layup on the next possession to spark an 11-1 run as the Blue Jays built the 19-point lead at 11:11.

• Hopkins pushed its lead to 20 with 9:48 to play, but Marymount wasn't going away. Taiga Walker hit a jumper in the paint at 8:27 to ignite a 11-5 spurt to trim the deficit to 14 at the 5:41-mark.

• Gardner drained a pull-up jumper to kick-start a 10-1 run as the Blue Jays pushed out to a 25-point lead just two minutes later. That run would cement the win as the Saints could get no closer than 20 over the final three and a half minutes.

What it Means

• Hopkins improves to 2-2 all-time against Marymount in the first meeting between the two in 30 years.

• Head coach Josh Loeffler becomes the first head coach to win his Blue Jay debut since Jim Valvano won his first game on December 6, 1969.

• The 22-point win is the largest in a season-opener since Hopkins beat Stevenson, 75-53, on November 20, 2009.

Inside the Box Score

• All five Hopkins' starters scored in double figures and the last time five players did so was on January 21, 2017.

• Senior Kyle Doran led all scorers with 21 points while also grabbing six rebounds. Vila just missed a double-double as he finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, to go with two blocks and three steals.

• Kern and Delaney each punched up 16 points while Delaney also handed out a game-high seven assists. That is tied for the most by a freshman in a single game.

• Gardner also finished in double digits as he chipped in 11 points to go with four helpers and five boards.

• Kamara led the Saints with 13 points while Brandon Rogers was the only other player in double figures with 10 points. Rogers pulled a team-high seven boards and also had two blocks.  

Up Next

• Hopkins travels to Memphis, TN to take on LeTourneau in the Rhodes Tip-off Tournament on Saturday, November 18. Tip-off at Mallory Gymnasium is slated for 1:00 pm CT.