South Alabama Run Away With 88-64 Win Over Louisiana-Lafayette
Augustine Rubit set a new career-high with 34 points with 12 rebounds for his 14th double-double of the season against ULL. Photo by John Adams | usajaguars.com
The South Alabama Jaguar Men’s Basketball team defeated Louisiana-Lafayette 88-64 Thursday night at the Mitchell Center. The Jags cruised to their fourth win of the season behind a 34 point performance by junior Augustine Rubit.
This four-game win streak is the longest of the season and marks their seventh win in their last eight games as they improved their overall record to 15-9 and 12-4 in Sun Belt play. The Cajuns record fell to 9-17 on the season and 5-10 in Sun Belt Play.
Earlier in the season, Rubit had tied his career high of 32 points when the Jags played at Louisiana-Monroe. But he broke that career high on 11-of-16 shooting from the floor and 12-of-16 from the foul line while grabbing 12 rebounds for this 14th double-double of the season.
Mychal Ammons also earned a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor and 2-of-4 from outside the three-point arc. He scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half.
The first half was close until the final four minutes before halftime when the Jags began to pull away. A 9-0 run with a three-pointer by Antoine Allen moments before halftime really put the momentum in the Jaguars favor with a 39-28 lead at intermission.
The Cajuns never really mustered a challenge in the second half as South Alabama’s lead swelled to 17 points in the first five minutes of the half. Then an 11-1 run would grow the lead to 24 points with a score of 72-48 with 8:04 left in the game.
While Rubit and Ammons were the only Jaguars in double digits, Dre Conner had a team-high of five assists with nine points and Javier Carter added eight points. Antoine Allen had eight points while four other Jaguars scored points as well.
ULL’s Elfrid Payton scored 17 points and a game-high seven assists while Kasey Shepherd added 16 points off the bench and the Conference’s leading scorer Shawn Long added 11 points for the game. Bryant Mbamalu, the conference’s seventh-leading scorer was held to four points on 1-of-6 shooting.
“It was good to see us put together what I thought was a total game for two halves,” interim head coach Jeff Price said in his post-game press conference. “The first half, I thought we played really well and the second half we built the lead some. We’ve had these leads before and allowed them to go down so it was good to see our team be able to step up a little bit and build this thing up instead of let it go down. It happened in a lot of ways. I thought we turned it up defensively in the second half.”
“We felt like this was a game where we could have some success inside with him (Augustine Rubit),” Price said. “Our game plan will be consistent. We don’t have a lot of secrets here. We need to get the ball inside.”
“I haven’t even looked at the stats, but I could tell he (Mychal Ammons) was active,” Price said noted after the game. “I talked to Mike a lot this week about how he wasn’t rebounding like he was earlier. He just wasn’t rebounding the ball and tonight, before the game, he needed to get me 10 and he got 11. It’s more of a focus with Mike and if he really puts his mind to it. I mean, he’s as athletic as anyone on the floor and as strong as anybody in the league and when he wants to he goes and gets it.”
“They shot the ball well,” Cajun head coach Bob Marlin said in his post-game conference. “I thought Rubit shot it well from the perimeter as well as from the post. (Javier) Carter had a really nice game and made some jump shots. Mychal Ammons had a nice game outside. That might be the best front line in our league from the 3, 4, and 5 positions.”
“Mychal Ammons and Antoine Allen are very good defensively,” Marlin continued. “They’re strong, they’re quick, and they’re aggressive. And when they can lean on you like they did tonight, it’s hard to get it over them. Bryant worked hard, but credit South Alabama.”
The Jags will have a week off to prepare for a trip to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to take on the Sun Belt Eastern Division and overall Conference leader Middle Tennessee State (22-4 overall, 14-1 SBC) on Thursday with tip-off scheduled for 7:00pm.
“We know that’s going to be a really tough game on Thursday and we didn’t want to talk about it until we got this one out of the way,” Price said. “We’ll talk about it a lot this week and see if our guys can answer the challenge on the road. We’ve played well on the road, 5-2 on the road against some really good teams.”