Rubit’s Record-Setting 53rd Double-Double Leads Jags Over Texas State
Augustine Rubit broke a tie between him and Terry Catledge by earning his 53rd career double-double as a Jaguar. Photo by John Adams | usajaguars.com
Senior Augustine Rubit earned a school-record 53rd double-double of his career to lead the Jaguars to a 63-53 win over Texas State on Thursday night at the Mitchell Center. His double-double broke a tie with Terry Catledge for the most double-doubles in school history.
Rubit scored 14 points and came down with 11 rebounds in the game with four steals, two blocks, and two assists as the Jaguars never trailed in the game.
A strong defensive effort by USA held the Bobcats in check throughout most of the first half by only allowing 10 points through the first 16+ minutes of the game. TSU only made five of their 22 field goal attempts and shot 27.6% in the first half.
Though the Jaguars did not shoot much better with a 33.3% mark in the first half themselves. Rubit and Antoine Allen accounted for 17 of the teams 31 first half points.
Texas State scored the first six points of the second half to draw near but an 8-1 run by USA stretched the lead by out to 13 points about midway through the second half.
Again Texas State made a run by scoring eight unanswered points and 12 of 15 points scored to cut the lead four with just over five minutes remaining. But Allen and Williams both hit buckets to double the lead and would only allow the Bobcats to close to within five points twice over the final 2.5 minutes. Williams finally put the nail in the coffin with a three-pointer with 1:20 left in the game.
Allen was the only other Jaguar to score in double-figures with 13 points to go along with his two steals and two assists.
All nine Jags saw action in the game.
“I’m really proud of the team,” coach Matthew Graves said. “The guys did a tremendous job of coming out and playing hard out of the gate. We talked about this week, everybody is aware that we weren’t playing for the opportunity to go to the conference tournament, which is certainly disappointing, and the players could have easily given up and not played as hard and ridden off into the sunset. But they hung tough and I was really encouraged, especially in the first half, by how hard the guys were playing. They were really sharing the basketball.”
“In the second half we started off very flat and reverted back into some bad habits that have crept in and we were able to regroup in time and force a lot of turnovers. This might have been our season high in turnovers that we forced and I thought overall defensively, except for a few times in the post, this was one of our better efforts on the year.”
South Alabama will conclude their 2013-2014 season at the Mitchell Center on Saturday against Texas-Arlington with tipoff scheduled for 7:05pm on Senior Night. The Lady Jaguars will play beforehand and will honor their Seniors prior to their game as well.
USA will be bidding farewell to two Seniors, Antoine Allen and Augustine Rubit. Come out on Saturday and send those two out on a high note.