The Binghamton men’s basketball team hosted D’Youville on Wednesday night for its season exhibition, emerging victorious 88-56 against the Saints. After shaking off some opening night jitters, the Bearcats began to click and never looked back, pulling out a 32-point win in front of their home crowd.

“I liked that we were able to come out early on, move, get up and down the court,” said Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders. “I knew we would have a lot of nervousness today. I felt we were pretty nervous.”

Binghamton opened up the scoring with a quick two points after senior guard Armon Harried found a cutting junior guard Tymu Chenery, who rose up to drop the ball into the basket. D’Youville responded after hitting two free throws and a layup to go up 4-2. In the early minutes, the Bearcats continued to trade baskets with the Saints as a three-pointer from graduate student guard Dan Petcash tied the game at 9-9. Not long after, a fast break dunk by graduate student guard Symir Torrence forced a Saint timeout as BU took a 13-9 lead. The Bearcats continued to keep the momentum as a driving reverse layup from sophomore guard Chris Walker put Binghamton up 19-11.

“Offensively I didn’t think that we were able to kind of do some of the things that we [have] been doing since we’ve been practicing,” Sanders said. “It was kind of expected … first time playing in front of fans.”

Midway through the first half, BU began to break things open while also tightening its defense against D’Youville, taking a 21-11 lead. Back-to-back dunks on the offensive end from Walker and freshman guard Evan Ashe along with baskets from senior forward Nehemiah Benson gave BU a 14-point cushion. Binghamton continued to take advantage of the Saints’ sloppiness with the ball, going up by 21 after Torrence converted on an and-one opportunity. Going into halftime, the Bearcats held a 46-23 lead.

“I like that we got out and ran,” Sanders said. “When you’re not shooting it great, you got to try to find a way to get easy baskets, and I thought we did a good job of doing that.”

D’Youville got on the board first in the second half with a quick layup. However, Chenery hit a corner three-pointer a couple of minutes later to kickstart Binghamton’s second-half offense. The Bearcats continued to control the pace of play as Walker hit a three-pointer off of a pass from Harried to make it 54-30. Binghamton maintained its offensive prowess as baskets from Benson, Ashe and Harried allowed the Bearcats to gain a 62-30 lead.

“I thought as the game went on [the team was able to] kind of impose their will defensively,” Sanders said. “Then, we were able to get some turnovers and get out and run.”

Binghamton continued to have its way against the Saints for the rest of the game, dunking and draining three-pointers all over the court. At one point, BU increased its lead to 38, the highest of the game. When the final buzzer sounded, the Bearcats defeated the Saints 88-56.

“First game in front of fans, I expected us to be nervous and we were,” Sanders said. “Now we just gotta be able to build off this and get better.”

As a team, BU had 21 assists, shooting 58.5 percent from the field and 71 percent from the free throw line en route to its victory. In addition, four Bearcats scored in double figures. Notably, all four players are recent transfers to Binghamton. Chenery and Walker led all scorers with 14 points while Benson and Ashe added 10 points each for BU.

“After the first few minutes on the court passed by, I started to get well acquainted with the flow of the game,” Ashe said. “I just wanted to get in the game and provide energy and fill in my role whether it was defending, scoring or [being] vocal.”

Binghamton will take on Northwestern in its first regular season contest on Monday, Nov. 6. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. at the Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Illinois.

Editor’s Note (11/3): This article has been edited to remove the records.