The Ursinus Men’s Basketball team made a statement in their 99-95 win over Immaculata to start the Bears Bash Tip-Off Tournament, and the Winter sports season.
In the second game, the Bears battled it out with Wilkes University with Wilkes taking the victory, 100-99.
Men’s basketball were ranked fifth in the Centennial Conference preseason poll. The Bears (54) sit right below Swarthmore (58).
The Bears have four returning players who made significant impacts for the team last season. Offensively, the Bears return two leading scorers: Trevor Wall ‘25 and Nick Nocito ‘26. Wall won the Centennial Conference scoring title with 19.4 points per game last season. This earned him All-Centennial First Team honors. Nocito was ranked second on the team with 11.1 points per game. He had a 40.3 shot percentage from the field, 33 percentage from deep and 35 three-pointers.
The team also brings back Cole Grubbs ‘25, who held down the fort on defense last season, averaging 6.2 rebounds, 1.8 blocks, and 6.7 points per game. Marlin Wise ‘25 was a key asset on both ends, with a 49.7 shooting percentage from the field, the second best on the team. He had 5.5 rebounds per game and a total of 26 blocks.
Additionally, Luke Nieman ‘27 has already made an impact at the start of this season. Nieman scored 19 points in the Bears first game against Immaculata. “We have so much offensive firepower that scoring will come on its own,” Nieman said. Referring to Grubbs and Wise: “Defense and our toughness level is definitely our priority, we’re putting the focus on being a team that no one wants to play because we’re going to out-work, out-physical, and out-execute the other team.”
The Bears have a strong schedule with many rematches from last season. Men’s basketball will participate in the Cruzin Classic in Fort Lauderdale Florida for the second straight season. They will face the United States Coast Guard Academy and Wartburg College at the end of December. The Bears will also head down to Ashland, Virginia for the Suyes Yellow Jackets Classic just before the New Year. The Bears will rematch with Widener, Rosemont, TCNJ, Goucher, and FDU-Florham. They beat FDU-Florham and Rosemont last season.
In preparation for the season, the Bears have set clear team goals and have a common mentality to ensure the team’s success. “(We want) to be dawgs,” Nocito said. “We want to make our identity that we are the hardest playing, toughest team in the conference. Also, while wins are important, early in the year the focus is on improving our team. We want to get better defensively and trend the right way so that we are improving each game preparing for conference matchups in January.”
“We’re looking to play with a really gritty mentality this year and be a group that plays the same, up 20 or down 20,” Nieman said.
The Bears strive to be gritty and fight each game. The team has their eyes set on being Centennial Conference champions.“ Of course we want to win a lot of games, make playoffs, and be a high seed, but the ultimate focus for the team is getting better each game and peaking at the end of the year by winning the Centennial championship,” said Nocito.
As the season gets underway, the Bears are focusing on a couple of aspects of their game in order to meet their goal of being Centennial Conference champions. Nocito commented on their strong defensive focus. “We know we have an explosive offense that’s going to score a lot of points, our wins and losses are going to be on the backs of how much we improve our defense. Defense and rebounding will be focal points to get better from last season and from the beginning to the end of this year.”
Nieman added, “we want to be a team that just wears the other team down over the course of the game by getting consecutive stops on defense and grabbing rebounds relentlessly.”
Although the Bears want to win the Centennial, they are taking a day-by day approach. Nieman spoke about the importance of taking one step at a time. “Just like any other team, we all want to win a championship, but we’re taking a day-by-day approach and really worrying about making the most out of every drill and every practice so that we can get better over the course of the year and be a scary team to play.”