Junior guard Conner Delaney — taking part in simply 20 minutes from the place he grew up — drained a 17-foot jumper as time expired to raise the eighth-ranked Johns Hopkins males’s basketball workforce to a 73-71 win over top-ranked and beforehand unbeaten Swarthmore within the Centennial Convention Championship sport Saturday night at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
Delaney, who scored Hopkins’ ultimate eight factors, took possession after the Blue Jays got here up with a giant defensive cease on the different finish with simply over 30 seconds remaining. He dribbled out all however the final a number of seconds on the high of the important thing earlier than drifting to his proper and dropping in his game-winner underneath heavy defensive stress to present the Blue Jays their second Centennial title within the final three years.
Conner mentioned …. BALLGAME! Hopkins tops #1 @SwatMBasketball 73-71 .. the distinction? Delaney’s thirty first and thirty second factors … on the Buzzer. #GoHop pic.twitter.com/MomlnKnyLr
— Johns Hopkins MBB (@JHU_Basketball) March 1, 2020
In a sport with 12 ties and 12 lead adjustments, neither workforce led by greater than 5 and the Garnet had a three-point lead at 65-62 with underneath 4 minutes remaining earlier than a Braeden Johnson 3-pointer tied the sport at 65 with 3:18 to play. Swarthmore than bookended a 3 from Delaney with 4 free throws to seize a 69-68 lead with 2:16 on the clock.
One other Delaney triple was answered by a Vinny DeAngelo jumper with 96 seconds remaining earlier than Delaney misfired from deep with simply over a minute remaining. George Visconti missed a jumper and a 3 within the subsequent 30 seconds and Johnson grabbed the second rebound to arrange Delaney’s game-winner. Blue Jay head coach Josh Loeffler didn’t name a timeout and everybody within the standing-room-only crowd of practically 1,300 knew who would take the ultimate shot; all that was left was for Delaney to punctuate his match MVP efficiency along with his buzzer-beating game-winner.
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A back-and-forth first-half ended with the Garnet, who had swept the Blue Jays within the common season, main 41-38 as Nate Shafer (12 factors), Vinny DeAngelo (11) and Visconti (10) mixed for 33 factors within the opening 20 minutes.
The Blue Jays used a 6-0 run, courtesy of two Delaney 3-pointers, to seize 57-53 lead, however the Garnet answered with a 9-2 spurt that was fueled by 5 factors from DeAngelo and capped with a Visconti jumper to seize a 62-59 lead with simply over eight minutes remaining.
Swarthmore held the lead for the following 5 minutes earlier than Johnson’s three-pointer tied the sport at 65 and set the stage for Delaney’s late-game heroics.
What it Means
• Johns Hopkins earns the Centennial Convention’s computerized bid to the upcoming NCAA Event.
• The 24 wins for the Blue Jays this season are one shy of the college single-season document.
• Swarthmore is the primary number-one ranked workforce Johns Hopkins has ever overwhelmed in males’s basketball. The Garnet have been the final unbeaten males’s basketball workforce within the nation (at any degree of the NCAA).
• This was the third consecutive 12 months the Blue Jays and Garnet have met within the Centennial title sport. All three video games have been at Swarthmore with the Blue Jays taking the even-year matchups.
Contained in the Field Rating
• Delaney was the one Blue Jay to attain in double figures as his 32 factors have been a game-high and matched his career-high. He added eight assists and three rebounds to safe his match MVP award.
• Johnson scored 9 factors off the bench as he was 3-of-7 on 3-pointers. The Blue Jay bench outscored the Swarthmore bench 21-1 within the sport.
• DeAngelo scored a team-high 23 factors for Swarthmore, which additionally obtained 18 from Shafer and 14 from Visconti.
• The groups mixed to commit simply 14 turnovers (7 every) within the well-played sport.
