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Behind Hughes' leadership, Ursinus men win fifth straight

12/08/2021, 12:30am EST
By Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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Ryan Hughes is the leading scorer of a 6-1 basketball team and that's not even scratching the surface of what he's meant to Ursinus this winter.

The points are great and Hughes was right on course again Tuesday with 21 of them. The double-doubles — of which he now has five in seven contests — have been an added bonus and the assists, acting as the Bears' de facto point guard, have yielded plenty of good looks. It's everything else from the patience to picking the right moment to make the right kind of play that's fitted the senior in as the keystone of a talented and young roster.

Hughes is leading and Ursinus is following, downing FDU-Florham 82-59 on Tuesday for its fifth straight win.

Ryan Hughes holds a basketball

Ryan Hughes (right) has played a large role in Ursinus' early-season success. (Photo: David Morgan/Stylish Images)

"I think it's the guys around me," Hughes said following his 21-point, 11-rebound, four-assist night. "We move the ball on offense, we have four or five guys averaging double digits right now and that makes it easier for me in the long run. If we can keep that up, then we can be a good team and have great success."

It's not like nobody is noticing what Hughes is doing. After all, the 6-foot-4, 185-pound Middletown, Pa., native was named the Centennial Conference's Player of the Week on Tuesday. It's more the manner in which he's doing it that may be cloaked by his overall strong statistics.

With Tuesday's numbers added, Hughes is leading the team with an 18.0 ppg average, grabbing 8.4 rebounds and dishing 3.7 assists per game. He's also been extremely efficient, hitting 8-of-11 attempts against FDU-Florham and shooting 51.6 percent overall from the floor and 39.3 percent from three.

The precedent was there, with Hughes earning Second Team All-Centennial Conference after his sophomore year. Considering he, his team and his conference didn't play at all last year, it's still quite remarkable that Hughes has seemingly picked up right where he left off.

"He's been terrific and also intentionally doing some things for us that have nothing to do with scoring," Ursinus coach Kevin Small said. "There are some guys in our league just like Ryan who are having 30-point ball games and our entire spring was spent talking, he and I, about distribution curves on really good teams.

"I'm really proud of what he's doing because he could easily go score 35 and we would not be as good a team."

The Bears have gotten tremendous contributions from the underclassmen that make up most of their roster. Junior Kyle Maurer is second on the team with 12.9 ppg and had a strong night Tuesday with 14 points and four assists. Sophomore Trevor Wall is putting up 11.9 ppg and freshman Sean Neylon is also in double figures at 11.0 ppg.

Another freshman, Cole Grubbs, is averaging 10.1 rebounds a night after grabbing 12 off the glass against the Devils.

Neylon had 17 on Tuesday while Wall had 14 as Ursinus came out firing and hitting, racing to a 19-5 lead six minutes into the game. A turnaround jumper by Hughes on the baseline with six seconds left gave the hosts a 20-point lead at the break.

"I think it's due to how connected we are, on and off the court," Hughes said. "We're a close bunch, we do everything together and I think it translates on the court. We know what we're good at, what we're not, we know everything about each other."

Hughes and fellow seniors Matt McMahon and Peyton Vostenak are the captains this winter and spent their year away from the court getting a crash course in leadership from the coaching staff. Small and his assistants would give the would-be seniors scenarios to see how they would handle them and used their limited time together to discuss how to be an effective leader.

It's not always an easy role to fill, especially jumping into it after a year off, but Hughes has embraced the challenge. Small cited some of the leaders Hughes had as an underclassman like Matt Williams, Zach Muredda and Ryan McTamney who helped show him the way, just like he's doing with this crop of underclassmen.

"I would say it's somebody who is there for their teammates," Hughes said of defining a good leader. "We have a saying here that 'iron sharpens iron' so I'm doing something wrong, I want one of the freshmen to let me know and if I see a freshman doing something wrong, we can let each other know. I think that's what great leaders do, be open to learning from each other."

Much like Ursinus did in the first half, FDU-Florham came out rolling in the second half, going on a 13-0 run that chopped the Bears' 20-point lead to a 53-46 margin with 12:52 to play. Enter Hughes, who got into the lane, drew contact and earned a trip to the foul line where he knocked down both attempts.

It kicked off a 13-5 Bears run capped by a Maurer three in transition that rebuilt the lead back to 15 and prompted a Devils timeout. Hughes didn't make much of the play to draw the foul, but it was just the kind of moment that he's been coming up with all season.

"We're really spoiled in that there's so much he does for us that we really take for granted because we're so preoccupied with advancing the cause with these younger players, but he's had a great year and I'd agree that play was probably a bigger play that people realize," Small said. "You see the Kyle Maurer three and the timeout, but it was really about the free throws that preceded it."

Hughes, who graduated from Middletown High School as the program's second-leading scorer with 1,796 points, will have another year at Ursinus after this one, but he's locked in on the here and now.

Ursinus is off to a 3-0 start in the Centennial, but there's a long way to go in what is always a highly competitive conference. The Bears also have some nonleague challenges left, starting Saturday with a Widener team that's starting to get on a roll of its own.

"I want to have patience. Coach Small tells me I can go out and drop 30 in any game but I want to get the other guys involved," Hughes said. "That boosts their confidence and helps us win games. I'm not worried about my points, at the end of the day if I had zero and everybody else had 20, I'm fine with that as long as we win the game."


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