BALTIMORE, MD – The 12th-ranked Johns Hopkins men's basketball team opened the Ryan Cain era with an 86-76 win over Marymount on Wednesday night at Goldfarb Gym. The Blue Jays open the season with a win for the first time since 2019.
Leading 33-31 at the half, Hopkins came out firing in the second with. Junior Brian Johansson scored five straight points, followed by buckets from graduate student Sidney Thybulle and freshman Brayden Fagbemi and just like that the lead was 11 less than two and a half minutes in. Marcus Stubbs halted the run with a driving layup, put junior John Windley sandwiched a pair of triples around a Montell Cooper basket and Hopkins led 48-35 at the 16:24-mark.
After a Stubbs' free throw, Fagbemi converted an old-fashioned three-point play, followed by a Johansson three-pointer and the lead was 18. The Saints quickly trimmed the deficit back to 14 at the 13:56-mark with a 6-3 spurt. A Carson James layup sparked a methodical an 11-3 run that saw Hopkins push its lead to 22 with 9:53 to play. Freshman Jeb Williams capped the run with a fast-break bucket to stake Hopkins to a 68-46 lead.
Still trailing by 22 with 9:11 on the clock, Jack Bifano drained a pair of free throws to spark a 14-0 run. Stubbs punctuated the run with a bucket from downtown as the Saints sliced the Blue Jays' lead to eight with 5:34 to play. Sophomore Charlie Jackson ended a nearly four-minute Hopkins scoring drought with a jumper at 5:19 to make it 72-62.
Wyatt Hockenberry answered with a jumper in the paint but five unanswered points from Windley pushed Hopkins' lead to 77-64. Marymount wasn't going away however. Marcus Beckett hit one of two free throws, followed by a layup and the lead was eight with 2:16 to play. That's as close as the visitors could get in the final two minutes as the Blue Jays made six of seven free throws to seal the win.
The first half was a more back-and-forth affair as the period featured seven lead changes and a pair of ties. Marymount grabbed an early 7-2 lead but a 9-4 spurt from Hopkins, fueled by a pair of Williams' triples, gave the home team an 11-9 lead at the 12:19-mark. Jack Farrelly tied the game with a bucket in the paint and sparked an 8-3 run to take a 17-14 lead four minutes later. The lead seesawed up and down over the remainder of the half as neither team led by more than five points.
Fagbemi was one of five Blue Jays to finish in double figures as he scored a team-high 19 points to go with eight assists and three steals. Windley scored 15 while Jackson put up 14 on 5-of-7 shooting. Williams finished with 13, going 5-of-5 from the field, and Johansson added 10. Thybulle finished with a game-high nine rebounds, along with two blocks and four assists.
Cooper scored a game-high 21 points to lead the Saints while Stubbs added 12 points. Hockenberry chipped in 10 points and Bifano had a team-best six boards.
Hopkins hits the road this weekend for the Scholars Classic at New York University. Hopkins takes on host and ninth-ranked NYU at 5:00 pm Saturday, November 11.
Notes: Fagbemi and Williams are the first pair of Blue Jay freshmen to score in double figures in their career debut since Conner Delaney (16 points) and Joey Kern (16 points) • Delaney and Kern also accomplished the feat against Marymount on November 15, 2017 • Fagbemi's eight assists are the most by a freshman in a game in JHU history.