After winning its home opener 82-63 against Oneonta, the Binghamton men’s basketball team carried some of its momentum into a game against UMiami on Sunday afternoon but ultimately fell short 88-64. While the Bearcats had control early, their cold streaks gave the Hurricanes the runs they needed to pull away with the win.

“Obviously, when you play as a team of that caliber, you have to be able to execute for 40 minutes,” said Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders. “It’s hard to play perfect, but I thought we came out and were ready to play. We had some opportunities, we were up like 10-4, but we had opportunities to even take it higher, and we didn’t capitalize on it because we just were not having good offense.”

Binghamton (1-2) came out of the gate hot against UMiami (2-0). A quick layup from sophomore forward Gavin Walsh put the game’s first points on the board, and after the Hurricanes answered with two points of their own, a three-pointer from graduate student forward Tymu Chenery put BU up 5-2. The Bearcats remained up from there, with another layup from Chenery and another three-pointer from Walsh putting Binghamton up 10-7 heading into the first media timeout.

“You need those hot starts because when you start that way it gives you the ability to be confident,” Sanders said. “When you don’t start that way and now the other team starts hot, then your confidence kind of diminishes and the opponent’s confidence raises. Especially if you can go into somebody else’s building and you can start well, that takes the air out of the building.”

Coming out of the media break, the tides soon turned in Miami’s favor, which took the lead at 12-10 with a three-pointer. After senior forward Nehemiah Benson drove in a layup to make it 16-12, Binghamton’s shooters struggled as Miami mounted an eight-point run to go up 24-12, the game’s largest lead so far. A set of layups from Walsh and Benson broke up UMiami’s run to make it 24-16, but Binghamton was unable to mount an extended offensive run. By the time the half ended, the Hurricanes were up 46-25.

“We have to execute at a higher level,” Sanders said. “A lot of times it’s getting these guys to slow down and understand ‘alright cool, we didn’t score two times in a row. We need to go down and we need to get a basket.’ It’s interesting because we track a lot of these things. We know when these things are happening … We got to have better awareness about the game and what’s going on.”

Coming out of halftime, Walsh scored in the paint for two before swishing consecutive three-pointers to make it 48-33, jumpstarting BU’s offensive surge. The Bearcats continued to string together finishes with a driving layup from sophomore guard Evan Ashe getting Binghamton within 14. However, the Bearcats got no closer than that as UMiami continued to pull away from the visitors. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the Hurricanes had cemented an 88-64 victory over BU.

Leading the way for Binghamton on Sunday with the best game of his collegiate career was Walsh, who put up 21 points and 10 boards in 32 minutes as he went 4-for-7 from beyond the arc. Benson joined Walsh in scoring double-digit points with 12 in the outing, off of 6-of-10 shooting from the field, while redshirt junior guard Chris Walker had five assists and sophomore guard Jayden Lemond had four.

“When we first started recruiting [Walsh], these are the kind of games that we felt [Walsh] could have,” Sanders said. “We knew that [Walsh] was a talented player when he puts it all together. I think that [Walsh’s] biggest thing is he just has to slow down and be patient. He wants to score 50 points in one possession and it’s not possible. But I like his makeup. He plays hard as heck. He’s never in fear of anybody on the floor.”

The Bearcat’s final stop on their road trip will be in the Big Apple on Tuesday, Nov. 12 as the team takes on Fordham. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Rose Hill Gym in the Bronx, New York.