BALTIMORE, MD – The 11^th-ranked Johns Hopkins men's basketball shot nearly 60 percent in the second half to pull away for an 89-71 win over Mitchell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday night.
 
It was a back-and-forth affair in the opening 13 minutes as there were four lead changes and five ties. Hopkins grabbed an early 9-4 lead after back-to-back triples from sophomores Brian Johansson and John Windley. But Mitchell answered with seven straight points and grabbed its first lead on an Alfonzo Stokes layup at 15:29. Nixon and James responded with back-to-back buckets in the paint to swing the lead back to the Blue Jays.
 
Wilton Causey and Mikey Buscetto sandwiched buckets around a Windley floater and it was 15-all at 12:21. JHU strung together a 7-2 spurt and led 22-17 on an Ethan Bartlett corner three. The lead was short-lived however as a Stokes three-pointer, followed by a Causey jumper knotted the score at 22 with 7:34 to play in the half.
 
Windley drained a three from the top of the key to spark an 11-2 run. He followed that with a trio of free throws and just like that the lead was six. After trading scoring possessions, Hopkins got a Jayden Nixon layup and a Conor Gibson free throw to take a 33-24 lead with 3:56 on the clock.
 
Robert Zirlis halted the run with a put-back off a Bishop Taylor miss. Stokes then hit a driving layup to trim the lead to five. Nixon answered with a bucket in the paint and the Blue Jays led 35-28 with 2:01 to go. Stokes made a pair from the line on the ensuing possession to ignite a 6-1 spurt to end the half and Hopkins led 36-34 at the break.
 
The Blue Jay came out firing to start the second half, racing out to a 49-38 lead by the 15:58-mark. Back-to-back driving layups by Johansson and senior Carson James quickly turned the two-point halftime lead into a six-point lead. Buscetto responded with a pull-up jumper to stem the tide. But JHU got three straight three-pointers from James, Windley and junior Will Sykes, sandwiched around two Stokes free throws, and the lead ballooned to 11 at 49-38.
 
The lead see-sawed up and down over a 67-second span and the Blue Jays led 51-42 with 14:51 to go. Back-to-back buckets from Windley and Johansson, followed by a Sidney Thybulle dunk pushed Hopkins' lead to 16 less than two minutes later. The Mariners came right back with a 7-2 spurt to cut the deficit to 11 with 10:27 left. That's as close as Mitchell would get for the remainder of the game as Hopkins would go on to win 89-71.
 
Windley led Hopkins with a career-high 23 points, while also grabbing seven boards and handing out a pair of assists. Thybulle posted a double-double with 10 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Johansson added 17 points while Nixon scored 14and grabbed seven rebounds. Buscetto led all scorers with 24 points and Stokes finished with 23 and seven rebounds.
 
Hopkins is back at Goldfarb Gym on Saturday, March 4 to take on Hamilton in the NCAA Second Round. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 pm.
 
Notes: Thybulle's 14 rebounds are one shy of the program record for an NCAA Tournament game • Hopkins' 46 total rebounds are also one shy of the school record for a tournament game • The Blue Jays' 53 second-half points are a school tournament record.