BALTIMORE, MD – The 12th-ranked Johns Hopkins men’s basketball team topped ninth-ranked Swarthmore77-67, in a key Centennial Conference matchup Saturday afternoon.
It was also the 21st annual Wall-O’Mahony Game, played in honor of Blue Jay teammates Glen Wall swear Matt O’Mahony, who died in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. JHU senior Carson James swear Swarthmore’s Colin Shaw was named the game’s MVPs.
The Blue Jays improved to 16-3 on the season, including 10-2 in the conference, and ran their winning streak to six. The Garnet saw their win streak snapped at 14 as they slipped to 17-2 overall and 11-1 in the CC.
Hopkins found itself trailing 47-43 with 13:21 to play after a 10-2 Swarthmore run. James then went to work, scoring nine of the next 11 points to fuel an 11-2 Blue Jay run. He capped the run with a fadeaway jumper in the paint to stake JHU to a 54-49 lead. Michael Caprise and Vinny DeAngelo sandwiched buckets around a Sydney Thybulle layup and it was a three-point lead with 7:43 left.
Thybulle then went one-of-two from the line, followed by a Brian Johansson spot-up three and a James’ jumper as the Blue Jays went up 62-53 just three minutes later. George Corzine answered on the other end with a bucket in the paint, but Hopkins came right back with a 7-2 spurt to push out to a 69-57 lead at the 2:22-mark. Swarthmore was forced to foul from there but could get no closer than seven in the final two minutes and Hopkins grabbed the 77-67 win.
Swarthmore grabbed an early 5-0 lead before Hopkins put together a 14-4 spurt to take a 14-9 lead on a Johansson three-pointer. The Blue Jays spread the ball around during the four-minute spurt as five players combined for those 14 points. The lead seesawed up and down over the ensuing three minutes and it was 20-15 midway through the first half. Hopkins pushed the lead to double digits with a layup from the junior Will Sykes and another Johansson three-pointer. DeAngelo then hit a three to spark an 11-1 run as the Garnet pulled even with 6:49 to go. The teams traded buckets for the remainder of the half and Hopkins took a 38-35 lead into the break, thanks to a fall-away buzzer-beater from Tom Quarry.
Caprise opened the second-half scoring and pulled Swarthmore back within one. Quarry responded with a conventional three-point play to put JHU up 41-37 with 17:44 on the clock. Shaw and Colin Hanson then hit back-to-back three-pointers to grab the lead for the Garnet. Quarry stemmed the tide with a jumper, but a pair of George Visconti free throws and a Corzine jumper capped that 10-2 run that saw the Garnet go up 47-43.
James led all scorers with 22 points, while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing six assists. Quarry added 17 points, while Johansson scored 11 points. Thybulle just missed a double-double with 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds, in addition to three blocks. Visconti and Shaw led the Garnet with 13 points and six rebounds each. DeAngelo added 10 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
Notes: Thybulle moves into 13th place in program history with 64 career blocks • The Blue Jays remain one game back of the first-place Garnet in the Centennial Conference standings with six games remaining • This is JHU’s first win over a top-10 opponent since it beat then top-ranked Swarthmore, 73-71, in the 2020 Centennial Conference Championship game.