LANCASTER, Pa. - In its first Centennial Conference matchup of the season, the Franklin & Marshall Men's Basketball team defeated Ursinus 71-59. Improving to 4-0 after Wednesday night, the Diplomats are off to their best start to a season since the 2017-18 campaign in which F&M last appeared in the NCAA tournament. 

Inside of the 10-minute mark, the Diplomats held the Bears to 4-of-12 shooting and forced five turnovers as they raced out to a 17-9 lead. Following a Trevor Wall three-pointer and an Ursinus timeout, F&M scored six straight points to push its lead to double-figures. Later leading 27-20, Jaylen Green drilled a three-pointer while being fouled and knocked down the free-throw to put the Diplomats up by 11. However Ursinus then went on a 9-5 run to cut the deficit to seven before calling a timeout with a minute remaining in the first half. Heading into the break, F&M led 38-31.

In the opening five minutes of the second half, the Diplomats shot 2-of-8, but also held Ursinus to just one field goal made, at they held a 43-34 advantage with under 15 minutes left to play. After Vakaris Grauslys hit the first of two free throws, Josh Parra grabbed his miss on the second free throw and made a lay-up to put F&M back up by double-digits. Two possessions later, Parra made another lay-up to cap off a 7-0 run, but the Bears answered back with 12 unanswered points over the next four minutes to close the gap to two. On a six-minute scoring drought, the Diplomats used another 7-0 run to take a 55-46 lead. With just over four minutes remaining in regulation, six straight F&M points gave the Diplomats a 12-point advantage and allowed them to close out a 71-59 win. 

Jaylen Green led the team in scoring on the night with 17 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field while John Seidman and Kevin Nowoswiat tallied six rebounds each. For a third straight game, F&M held the opposition to under 40% shooting, limiting Ursinus to 36.5% from the floor. 

After a week-long break, F&M will travel to Gettysburg on Tuesday, November 28 at 8 p.m. to take on the Bullets.