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BALTIMORE, MD - Johns Hopkins University's Steve Adams and Brendan Kamm scored a game high 19 points apiece as the Bluejays upset #16 nationally ranked Franklin & Marshall College 68-65 in the regular season finale for both teams. For Hopkins (18-6, 9-4 CC), the win clinches a chance at advancing to the Centennial Conference playoffs as the Bluejays will host two-time defending CC champion Gettysburg College in a CC West Division second-place tie-breaker game on Monday in Baltimore. Game time is 7 p.m. Gettysburg reached the postseason with a 74-59 victory against Dickinson on Saturday. The winner of the play-in game will then travel to Ursinus College (19-6, 13-0 CC) on Wednesday. For F&M (21-4, 10-3 CC) the game concluded the Diplomats regular season as Franklin & Marshall finished their first 25 games as the only program in the Conference with a 20-win season. The West Division's #1 seed, F&M will host Washington College on Wednesday at the Mayser Center in the first round of the Centennial Conference playoffs. Washington (10-15, 6-7 CC) advanced to the postseason as the #2 seed from the East courtesy a 69-65 win over McDaniel and a 60-44 loss by Swarthmore to Haverford as the Shoremen will reach the conference playoffs for the first time since 2000. Against Hopkins, guard Jackiem Wright (Jr., Sicklerville, NJ/Moorestown Friends) and center Steve Juskin (Jr., East Hanover, NJ/Hanover Park) scored a team high 14 points as the Diplomats had a five game winning streak snapped. Down 35-30 at halftime, F&M rallied from as many as 11 points down in the second half to take a 59-47 lead with four minutes to play behind a three-pointer from Wright. The lead see-sawed back and forth over the next two minutes before Adams made a basket and a foul shot to put the Bluejays ahead to stay at 63-61 with 1:49 to play. Forward Bob Lynch (So., Richboro, PA/Council Rock) made the first of two free-throws 12 seconds later to cut the lead to one, but Kamm drained a three-pointer to push the lead back to four with 1:12 left on the clock. Following a missed three-pointer by Wright, Hopkins grew the lead to six off a pair of free throws by Jay Kreider with 50 seconds left to play. F&M cut the lead back to three eight seconds later as Wright beat his defender and stroke his fourth three-pointer of the game for a 68-65 deficit with 42 ticks on the clock. Following 30 second timeouts by both F&M and Hopkins, the Bluejays inbounded the ball, but Wright stripped the Hopkins' shooter with seven seconds to go and launched a three-pointer with one second to go which failed to fall for the three point loss. Guard/forward Asaf Ganot (Sr., Tenafly, NJ/Tenafly) added 12 points and seven boards as the Diplomats outrebounded Hopkins 35-31, including an 11-to-five advantage on the offensive glass. Defensively, Juskin blocked six shots to raise his season total to 84, 25 more than his previous school record of 59 established in 2002. For his career, Juskin now has 192 blocks, 972 points and 508 rebounds as he is on pace to become the ninth player in F&M men's basketball history to record 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in a career. The key to the game was free throws as Hopkins made 14-of-20, while the Diplomats were limited to nine-of-14. F&M will continue the season on Wednesday versus Washington at 7:30 p.m. in the Mayser Center. The game will be a rematch of the 2000 Centennial Conference semi-finals in which F&M guard Jerome Maiatico '00 hit a last second shot in an 87-85 win to send the Diplomats onto the CC title and the NCAA Final Four.
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