COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Despite making nine 3-pointers in the second half and shooting 54.5 percent overall (30-of-55), the Ursinus College men's basketball team found itself on the short end of this afternoon's Centennial Conference clash with Johns Hopkins, which used its own deluge from distance to build a 24-point halftime cushion on the way to a 101-94 decision.

Senior guard Austin Vasiliadis led all scorers with 24 points for Johns Hopkins (2-4, 1-2), shooting 6-of-11 from the floor and making all nine of his foul shots, also handing out seven assists to orchestrate a deadly attack. The conference's leader in assists and steals added six rebounds to his stat line. Fellow senior Gene Williams poured in 19 points and senior forwards Matt Billups (16) and Matt Chiusano (10) landed in double figures for the Blue Jays, who had seven different players make a 3-pointer.

Sophomore forward Remi Janicot (Paris, France/Hun School of Princeton) scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed seven boards to pace six players in double figures for Ursinus (1-4, 0-3), which dropped its fourth game in a row. Senior guard Malik Draper (Scranton, Pa./Scranton) flirted with a triple-double (17 points, six rebounds, career-high eight assists), and freshman guard Eric Williams (Plainfield, N.J./The Hun School) tallied 12 of his 15 in the second half.

Sophomore guard Brian Rafferty made all five of his field-goal attempts (three of them treys) for 13 points and distributed five assists, while junior guard Matt Knowles (Waverly, Pa./Scranton) and sophomore forward Joseph LoStracco (Chalfont, Pa./Archbishop Wood) registered 11 points apiece. The Bears were 13-of-27 (48.1%) from distance, including 9-of-16 (56.3%) after halftime, but were unable to climb out of a deep hole in spite of some spirited second-half rallies.

Ursinus shot 52 percent from the field in the first half (52.0%), but the home side still found itself trailing 59-35 at intermission thanks to a remarkable long-range display by the red-hot Blue Jays. Johns Hopkins was 22-of-36 (61.1%) in the opening stanza, but the visitors were even more deadly from three-point distance, where they made nine of their 14 attempts (64.3%) to eventually construct an insurmountable advantage. The Bears were within 41-32 at the 3:02 mark of the half, but Johns Hopkins scored on its last seven possessions, including two triples and a three-point play after stealing an inbounds pass, to close the frame on an 18-3 barrage.

The Bears made several charges in the second half. They got within ten twice – both on Williams 3-pointers – within the first ten minutes of the stanza, and sliced the deficit to eight (73-65) on a lay-up by LoStracco at 9:22. The Blue Jays scored the next four points, though, and Ursinus only got back to an eight-point margin once more, on a free throw by Williams with 4:09 remaining. Williams came up just short on a triple that would have cut it to five, and Gene Williams drilled a corner 3 at the other end to put the game out of reach.

Johns Hopkins came in with the second-worst rebounding differential in the CC (-11.0), but pulled down 13 offensive boards and posted a 34-27 edge on the glass. The Blue Jays committed just nine turnovers and made 23 of their 26 free throws (88.5%).

Ursinus has two weeks off before a historic trip to the Palestra to face Penn on Saturday, December 19, at 2:30 p.m. It will be the first game in "The Cathedral of College Basketball" for the Bears since 1999, when they matched up with Swarthmore. It is the first appearance in the Palestra against Penn since 1928, and the first meeting with the Quakers since 1945. Penn head coach Steve Donahue was a member of Ursinus' 1981 Final Four team.