Men's Basketball Falls to Johns Hopkins at Blue Jays Invitational

Baltimore, MD – The Framingham State University men's basketball team opened up the second half of the season with an 80-53 loss to Johns Hopkins at the Blue Jay Invitational on Saturday afternoon.  With the win, the Blue Jays improve to 4-5 on the year, while the Rams slip to 2-8.

Senior guard Tim McCarthy (Wilmington, Mass.) paced the Rams with a team-best 13 points on 4-of-8 from the floor including 3-of-6 from behind the arc.  McCarthy, who also grabbed four boards, was the only Ram to reach double figures with four players tallying six points apiece including sophomore Tony Alexandre (Hyde Park, Mass.) who scored six points with five boards.

The game was a close one early as the teams traded baskets over the opening 3:35 of the game. Alexandre put the Rams on top with a jumper at 16:25 but Hopkins answered with a Kyle Doran jumper to spark a 16-3 Blue Jays' run. Senior Niko Kotoulas fueled the run with seven straight points as Hopkins pushed out to a 22-9 lead with 8:38 to play. The lead seesawed up and down over the ensuing four minutes as JHU led 29-19 at the 4:41-mark.

Junior Daniel Gould (Quincy, Mass.) trimmed the deficit to single digits with a bucket from downtown to ignite an 11-1 run by the Rams. They did much of their damage from behind the arc with three three-pointers as they cut the lead to three with 2:08 on the clock. A pair of Matt Billups free throws pushed the lead back to five, before McCarthy hit one of two for Framingham. Junior Nikihil Panu then drained a triple to put Hopkins on top 38-31 but a Matt Diver (Abington, Mass.) bucket in the paint made it a five-point game at the half.

Hopkins opened the second with six straight points to push its lead to 11 points, but back-to-back threes from McCarthy quickly trimmed the lead back to five. The teams traded buckets over the next two minutes and Hopkins led 51-43 with 13:40 to play. Williams answered with a three and junior Kyle Doran followed with a fast-break dunk to kick-start a 14-2 run that saw the Blue Jays' lead balloon up to 20 points by the 7:38-mark.

A Patrick Gould (Quincy, Mass.) triple made it a 65-48 game, but Panu answered with a three of his own and that's as close as the Rams would get in the final seven minutes as the Blue Jays led by as much as 27 points.

Doran finished with the game-high 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting and Williams added 14 points, five boards and two assists. Kotoulas posted a double double, scoring 10 points and grabbing a career-high 10 rebounds.

The Rams close out the tournament tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. against Rosemont.

Portions of release courtesy of Johns Hopkins Sports Information