Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - Johns Hopkins seniors George Bugarinovic and Jimmy Hammer became the 15th and 16th men's basketball players in school history to reach 1,000 career points and the Blue Jays had five players score in double figures in an 87-77 victory over Muhlenberg Saturday afternoon. Johns Hopkins, which never trailed and was tied just twice in the opening minutes, improves to 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Centennial Conference, while the Mules slip to 4-4 overall and 0-3 in the Centennial.

Bugarinovic and Hammer are the first Johns Hopkins players to reach the 1,000-point mark since 2007 and are the fourth set of classmates in school history to reach the mark; they are the first players in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark in the same game. In addition, both reached the mark in their 87th career game with Bugarinovic ending today's game with 1,011 points, while Hammer capped today's effort with an even 1,000.

The Blue Jays led by as many as 20 in the first half as they hit 17-of-29 (.584) from the floor before intermission and used a 21-1 run to turn a 9-9 tie into a 30-10 lead with 7:26 remaining. A layup by Bugarinovic at the 11:51 mark gave him exactly 1,000 points in his career and jump-started the spree, which included four, three-pointers from Hammer and six points from Bugarinovic. The run took just over four minutes and Hopkins scored on eight straight possessions during the spurt.

Although they never got the deficit under 10 for the remainder of the half, the Mules did get it to 10 twice and trailed just 44-33 at the half . An Owen McCloud three-pointer halted the Blue Jays' 21-1 run and the Mules were deadly effective from the line as they connected on 17-of-20 first-half free throws. Brandon LaRose did most of the damage in the first half for Muhlenberg as he scored all 13 of his points in the game before intermission.

A back-and-forth opening five minutes of the second half saw the Mules cut the deficit to eight at 52-44 with 15:25 remaining when Nick Rindock hit a three-pointer, but another Bugarinovic layup was followed by back-to-back jumpers from Matt Billups and Hammer to quickly push the lead to 58-44.

Over the next seven minutes, the lead was no less than 11 and up to as many as 18 after a Ryan Curran layup pushed the margin to 68-50 with less than eight minutes to play before Muhlenberg made its final run. A 14-6 spree that was capped by a conventional three-point play from John Hunter made it 73-64 with 2:23 remaining, but Hammer, who is closing in on 200 career three-pointers, made his fifth of the game with 2:10 remaining to give the Blue Jays a 12-point lead. Appropriately, those three points pushed Hammer to the 1,000-point mark.

Hopkins nailed 9-of-10 free throws in the final 1:05 to seal the victory, its fifth against the Mules in the last seven meetings in the series.

In addition to Hammer's 20 points, six rebounds and career-high-tying seven assists, Bugarinovic chipped in 13 points and eight rebounds. The Blue Jays also got a career-high 15 points and seven rebounds from Billups, a career-high-tying 14 points from Curran and a career-high 12 points and four rebounds from Omar Randall. Johns Hopkins shot 55.8% from the floor (29-of-52) and 50% from three-point range (9-of-18). The Blue Jays also outrebounded Muhlenberg 35-28.

McLeod led Muhlenberg with 18 points, 13 of which came in the second half. Senior Malique Killing added 17 points, while LaRose and Hunter added 13 and 12, respectively. The Mules hit 8-of-17 from three-point range and were 21-of-25 from the line, but never got it to a two-possession game after falling into the early 20-point hole.

Johns Hopkins will return to action on December 29 when the Blue Jays play Centre (KY) in the Washington & Lee Tournament.

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