Feb. 16, 2010

Complete Release in PDF Format

TIP OFF
    Johns Hopkins wraps up the regular season this week with a pair of Centennial Conference games. The Blue Jays travel to Lancaster, PA on Wednesday to take on 15th-ranked Franklin & Marshall. Hopkins then closes out the season on Saturday against Washington College on Senior Day.
    The Diplomats have won nine straight and have already locked up the regular season Centennial Conference title and will host next weekend’s conference tournament. The Shoremen are currently in fifth in the conference standings - the final playoff spot. A win in their final two games will clinch their first playoff bid since 2006.    

AGAINST THE DIPLOMATS
    Wednesday’s game will be the 86th meeting between Johns Hopkins and Franklin & Marshall. The Diplomats hold a 55-30 lead in the series, which dates back to 1946-47. The two programs have met atleast once a season since 1956-57, a stretch of 81 consecutive games.
    In their last meeting, Hopkins’ upset bid of then 17th-ranked Franklin & Marshall fell just short in a 53-50 loss. Freshman Mike Rhoads led the Blue Jays with a career-high-tying 15 points. The Diplomats have won three straight and four of the last five meetings.

AGAINST THE SHOREMEN
    Saturday’s meeting will be the 101st consecutive and 123rd all-time between Johns Hopkins and Washington College. The second most renewed series in program history, the Blue Jays and the Shoremen have met atleast once a year since the 1944-45 season. Hopkins leads the all-time series, which begn in 1927-28, 66-56.  
    The Shoremen swept the season series last year for the first time since 1988, while Washington’s win at Goldfarb last year was its first in Baltimore since February 20, 1988. The win also snapped a seven-game losing streak to Blue Jays. Washington won its third consecutive over Johns Hopkins when the two met in Chestertown on January 20.

IT’S ALL ACADEMIC
    Sophomore Danny Gergen was honored for his work in the classroom and on the hardwood on February 4. He was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Second Team.
    He is the third Johns Hopkins men’s basketball player in the last four seasons to earn academic all-district honors and brings the program’s total all-district selections to seven since 1990. Gergen is one of two sophomores and one of two players from the Centennial Conference named to the District II team.

PICKPOCKET
    Senior Pat O’Connell is inching closer to Dave Eikenberg’s (‘91) all-time steals record. O’Connell enters the final week of the season with 167 career steals, 15 shy of breaking Eikenberg’s record of 181. He currently has 54 steals this season, which are a career-best and rank fifth in program history.
    O’Connell leads the Blue Jays and ranks third in the Centennial Conference with 2.32 steals per game.

MOTHER NATURE WINS
    Due to the back-to-back blizzards that dumped over 50 inches on the Baltimore area last week, the Blue Jays had two games (Swarthmore, McDaniel) postponed a total of four times. The game at McDaniel on Friday night kicked off a stretch of five games in eight days for the Blue Jays as the regular season comes to a close.  

500-200-100
    Senior Pat O’Connell recently joined some rare company in the history of Johns Hopkins men’s basketball. Against Franklin & Marshall on January 27, O’Connell dished out four assists to push him over the 200 mark for his career. That also made him just the fifth player in program history with atleast 500 points, 200 assists and 100 steals for his career. He now has 830 points, 226 assists and 167 steals for his career.
    O’Connell is the second player in as many seasons to turn the trick, as Collin Kamm ‘09 accomplished the feat last season. O’Connell joins Glen Wall ‘94 (629-368-131), Michael Rotay ‘94 (600-216-102), Matt Geschke ‘99 (667-219-124) and Kamm (538-208-121) in the exclusive club.
    O’Connell is also the first player in program history with 800 points, 150 steals and 200 career assists. He is one of a handful of players in the history of Centennial Conference to accomplish the feat. Logan Outerbridge of Franklin & Marshall was the most recent player in the conference to do so, finishing his career in 2007 with 874 points, 158 steals and 267 assists.

COUNTDOWN TO 500
    Head coach Bill Nelson is in his 30th overall season, and 24th at Johns Hopkins and with 496 career wins, is just four shy of reaching the 500-win milestone. Nelson is also just nine wins shy of reaching his 400 win at Johns Hopkins.

ROOKIE OPENER
    Freshman guard Mike Rhoads started in the season-opener against Salisbury on November 20 and has started every game since then until Monday night’s game at Swarthmore. He was the first freshman to start in the season-opener for the Blue Jays since Danny Nawrocki in 2003. Rhoads suffered an injury against Haverford and is expected to miss
    Rhoads ranks second on the team in assists (1.70), steals (1.0) and minutes played (28.6) and leads all rookies with 7.0 points and 2.7 rebounds per game. He also leads the team in three-point field goals (32) and ranks fifth in the Centennial Conference in three-point field goal percentage (.410).
    Rhoads has also made his mark on the Johns Hopkins record book. Among freshmen all-time, he ranks seventh in assists (37), fourth in steals (22) and fourth in minutes played (630).

RECORDS WATCH
    Here’s a look at seniors Pat O’Connell and Andrew Farber-Miller’s steady rise through the Johns Hopkins record book:

O’Connell:
• Needs 28 three-point field goal attempts to move into 11th (has 209)
• Needs to make 7 three-point field goals to move into 12th, 12 to move into 11th (has 71)
• Needs 5 free throw attempts to rank 7th and 8 to rank 6th (has 327)
• Needs 4 free throws to rank 6th, 10 to rank 5th (has 231) and 11th to rank 4th (has 249)
• Needs 13 defensive rebounds to move into 12th (has 288)
• Needs 13 assists to rank 7th and 14 to rank 6th (has 226)
• Needs 15 steals to become JHU’s all-time steals leader (has 167)

Farber-Miller:
• Needs 4 free throw attempts to rank 13th, 5 to rank 12th and 6 to rank 11th, 8 to rank 10th and 22 to rank eighth (has 306)
• Needs 3 free throws to rank 11th, 6 to rank 10th and 18 to rank 9th (has 210)
• Needs 12 rebounds to move into 17th and 19 to move into 16th (has 431)
• Needs 9 offensive rebounds to move into 13th and 20 to rank 12th (has 144)
• Needs 11 defensive rebounds to move into 13th and 23 to move into 12th (has 287)
• Needs 11 blocks to move into 15th (has 38)

SEEING DOUBLE
    Johns Hopkins has a pair of twins on the team this season. Pat and Sean Wildes, 6-5 forwards from Massapequa Park, NY are the first set of brothers to play for the Blue Jays since the Kamms. Brendan Kamm played for head coach Bill Nelson from 2000-03, while Collin played from 2006-09. In addition, the Wildes twins are the first set of brothers to play simultaneously for JHU since Greg and David Roehrig played together in the 1997-98 season. Greg was a senior that season, while David was a freshman.

WHO’S A FRESHMAN?
    On January 16 in Hopkins’ wild come-from-behind win over Dickinson, freshman Peter Scanlon was cool under pressure despite seeing just 49 minutes of action all year. With the game tied at 50-50, Scanlon controlled a rebound off a missed Red Devils’ free throw and was fouled with just 0.6 seconds on the clock. The rookie calmly sank his first shot and despite an attempt to miss the second in order to run out the clock, banked it off the backboard and in to give Hopkins the two-point win.
    Scanlon is the first player to win a game in the final seconds of a game since Scott Weisenfeld hit a jumper with four seconds on the clock to give Hopkins a 64-63 overtime win at Haverford on February 9, 2008.

FREE BASKETBALL
    Hopkins and Mary Washington treated the fans at Goldfarb Gym to some extra hoops action on January 2. The Generals rallied from down eight in the closing three minutes to force the overtime. Trailing by just two with a little over two mintues to play, Hopkins closed out the game on a 10-0 run to defeat Mary Washington 77-69. It was the Blue Jays first overtime game in nearly two years.
    Just four days later, Hopkins and Muhlenberg needed overtime to decide the winner. The Mules used a 10-0 run in the extra stanza to defeat the Blue Jays, 65-57. It was Hopkins first loss in an overtime game since November 17, 2007 - snapping a streak of seven straight wins in overtime. It was also Hopkins first loss in overtime to a Centennial Conference opponent since February 19, 2005 - an 80-77 loss at Ursinus. The Blue Jays had won six straight overtime games against conference opponents.

SILVER TIMES TWO
    Johns Hopkins participated in two tournaments the week of December 28 - the Holiday Inn Airport Tournament at Nazareth College and its own Blue Jay Invitational. The Blue Jays finished as runners-up in both tourneys.

PACK ‘EM IN
    On December 29, the Blue Jays returned to action after a 24-day hiatus for finals and the holidays. That kicked off a stretch of six games in just 12 days for Hopkins. In fact, if you stretch it out a little further, the Blue Jays played nine games in just 19 days from December 29 to January 16. To put it into perspective, Hopkins had played just five games in 16 days to open the season.

PRIDE OF MARYLAND HISTORY
    Johns Hopkins picked up a pair of wins in three games at the Pride of Maryland Championship presented by M&T Bank to finish in third place. It is the fourth time in the five-year history of the tournament that the Blue Jays placed in the top three. JHU has 11 wins in the history of the tournament, which is tied with McDaniel for most among the nine Maryland schools.
    Hopkins has made more title game appearances (3) and has had more all-tournament team selections (9). The Blue Jays have led the tournament in scoring defense in three out of the five years, including this year when JHU held its opponents to just 57.0 points per game.

THESE ARE THE FACTS
    This is the 85th season of basketball at Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays first took to the hardwood in 1919-20. Hopkins boasts an all-time record of 824-928-1 (.470). JHU has won four conference tournament titles (two Centennial, two MAC) and made nine NCAA Tournament appearances.  

ON THE BENCH
    Head coach Bill Nelson is in his 24th season on the Blue Jay bench and 30th as a head coach. The longest tenured coach in program history, he is also the winningest with a 391-234 (.625) record. He has coached the Blue Jays to 15 or more wins in 17 of his 23 seasons at Homewood.
    Hopkins has won two Centennial Conference titles and made eight NCAA Tournament appearances, including five straight from 1990-1994, during Nelson’s tenure.
    Nelson is the second longest tenured coach in the Centennial Conference behind Franklin & Marshall’s Glenn Robinson. He ranks second in conference history in overall wins (391) and conference wins (164).

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
    The Blue Jays will be led this year by senior co-captains Pat O’Connell and Matt Dapas. O’Connell has averaged 7.6 points and 3.7 rebounds while playing 28.2 minutes per game in his career. Dapas, who joined the team as a sophomore, has seen action in 15 games in the last two years.

COACHES’ PICK
    Johns Hopkins was picked to finish sixth (84 points) in the Centennial Conference in a preseason poll of the conference’s coaches and SIDs. Franklin & Marshall was picked to win the conference with 161 points and 17 first-place votes.