Jaguar Men’s Basketball Team Public Scrimmage Today At 4pm
The South Alabama Jaguar Men’s Basketball team will hold a public intrasquad scrimmage on Tuesday afternoon at the Striplin Practice Facility.
The scrimmage is open to the public and will begin at 4pm.
Then on Wednesday evening fans will be able to meet head coaches Ronnie Arrow and Rick Pietri as well as the men’s and women’s basketball teams.
The meet and greet will be held on the main floor of the Mitchell Center and will include an autograph session with the coaches and players. Bring your memorabilia to be signed and cameras for photos with your favorite Jaguar players.
This even is also free to the public as is parking for the event. The meet and greet will run from 5pm to 7pm.
Following the meet and greet, fans are encouraged to go to Jag Gym to support the Jaguar Volleyball team as they take on Jackson State at 7pm.
South Alabama Basketball Fan Day On Wednesday
Come out and meet Head Basketball Coaches Ronnie Arrow and Rick Pietri and the rest of the Jaguar Basketball teams for Fan Day on Wednesday, October 24th from 5-7 p.m.
The event will take place on the main floor of the Mitchell Center. This event will feature an autograph session with the coaches and players so we encourage all fans to bring memorabilia to be signed and cameras for pictures of your favorite Jaguar players, SouthPaw and the Jaguar Cheerleaders. The USA Dance Team “the Prowlers” will also be performing.
This is a FREE event and open to the public. Parking is also free and available at the Mitchell Center in the south lot off of Old Shell Road. “Select your seats” for the 2012-13 Jaguar Basketball season as the Athletic Ticket Office will be on-site with information on Season Tickets, Flex Plans, Group Outings and Individual Game Tickets.
The 2012-13 Men’s and Women’s basketball teams will be introduced and they will participate in free throw, three point shooting and dunk contests versus our very own USA student organizations.
Immediately following Fan Day the South Alabama Volleyball team will be in action versus Jackson State at 7 p.m. in Jag Gym.
Go Jags!
Coach Arrow Elected To Chair SBC Coaches Committee
A Frustrated Coach Arrow sheds his coat during a Jaguar’s basketball game.
South Alabama Men’s head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow was elected to chair the Sun Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Coaches’ Committee in a vote of the league’s head coaches.
This is Arrow’s 14th overall season as the head coach of the South Alabama Men’s Basketball program. He will serve a two-year term as the chair.
As chair, he will advise and make recommendations to the Senior Woman Administrator’s Committee, Athletic Director’s Committee and Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson on topics related to student-athlete welfare, sporting behavior, competition, scheduling and other matters affecting the competitive status of men’s basketball.
“Anytime you’re elected to do a job, especially by your peers in your profession, it is an honor,” Arrow stated.
Coach Arrow and the men’s basketball team will open the 2012-2013 season on November 9 at Florida State.
Basketball Fan Day Announced
The University of South Alabama announced the schedule for Fan Day for the basketball programs.
On Wednesday, October 24 from 5-7pm the fans will be able to meet head coaches Ronnie Arrow, Rick Pietri and the student-athletes for the coming season.
Both teams will be introduced and coaches Arrow and Pietre will address the crowd. Afterwards the players will be available to meet fans and sign autographs.
Southpaw, cheerleaders and prowlers will be there as well. There will be a 3-point shooting contest, a game of “knockout” and a dunk contest by the players. The USA Bookstore will be there selling merchandise and representatives from the ticket office will be on hand to sell season tickets, flex plans and single-game tickets.
Additionally, USA Students will receive a free hot dog and pepsi and will have a chance to win an iPad and a big-screen television.
Jags Rubit And Conner Earn Preseason Honors From Yahoo! Sports
South Alabama’s Augustine Rubit and Dre Conner earned pre-season honors from Yahoo! Sports.
Rubit was named to the First Team All-Sun Belt team. He is a junior from Houston, Texas and coming off his sophomore season where he averaged 15.2 ppg and 9.2 rebounds per game. His rebounding average led the conference for the second consecutive year. Also his 12 double-doubles last season also led the conference.
Conner was named Newcomer of the Year. He is a junior college transfer from Labette community college in Lauderhill, Florida.
Additionally, Yahoo! Sports selected the Jaguars to finish second in the East Division behind defending conference champion Middle Tennessee State.
Men’s BBall To Play In Coaches Vs Cancer; Coach Pietri Pleased With Beginning Of Women’s Practices
Some dates have been set for the South Alabama men’s basketball team. The Jags will be participating in the 2012 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic as announced by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and American Cancer Society announced this week.
The four regional hosts will be BYU, Florida State, Notre Dame and Saint Joesph’s beginning on November 9. The championship rounds will be held on November 16-17 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Jags will open the season at regional host Florida State on November 9. They will then host William Carey before traveling to Atlanta for three sub-regional games where they will face Tennessee State on November 19th at 3pm CST. They will then face Monmouth on November 20th at 3pm CST and finally the Jags will take on Georgia State to close out the three-day tournament on November 21st at 2pm CST.
Tennessee State returns four starters from last season where they won 20 games and finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference. Monmouth had a 12-20 record last season but went 10-8 in the Northeast Conference. Georgia State went 22-12 last season but lost four starters and seven letterwinners.
Lady Jaguars
Coach Rick Pietri is pleased with the progress the Lady Jaguar basketball team has done so far as they have begun practices for the 2012-2013 season.
“I think our first two practices have been good,” Pietri said. “It appears that from top to bottom this group is in good shape from a conditioning standpoint. I believe for the first time since I have been here, we were able to go five-on-five in our closing segments the other day. We’ve shown some promise in terms of things that we could be capable of doing on the offensive end of the floor. We haven’t even talked about defense yet as a team, but we’ll do that towards the end of the week. I do like what I’ve seen from both the veterans and newcomers and after two days of practice, I’m encouraged, but of course there’s a long way to go.”
Men’s Basketball Announces 2012-2013 Schedule
South Alabama Men’s Basketball released their 2012-2013 season schedule on Tuesday. In addition to the Sun Belt schedule, they have some good non-conference games.
The Jags will open with a game at Florida State on November 9 before returning home to face William Carey on November 14.
They will then have the Coaches vs Cancer Classic in Atlanta, Georgia on November 19-21. After a two game road trip to FAU and FIU, they return home to host New Mexico State on December 4. They then travel to Birmingham to face UAB on December 8. Then return back home to Mobile to face Texas A&M-Corpus Christi before leaping fully into the Sun Belt Conference schedule.
The Sun Belt conference Tournament will be held March 8 – 11 in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
View the full schedule here.
Men’s Basketball Adds Two Transfers
South Alabama Men’s Basketball team picked up two late transfers. Jeremy Jones and Dionte Ferguson have enrolled at South Alabama and will join the basketball program head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow announced on Wednesday.
Since both transfer from Division I schools, they will have to sit out the 2012-2013 season and will be eligibile the next season.
Jones transfers to USA from Kansas State, where he played for one season and will have one year of eligibility remaining. He is a 6’2″ guard from Chicago. He averaged 3.1 points in 20 games last season for Kansas State.
As a member of Seward County Community College in 2010-2011, Jones led them to a 27-7 record and a runner-up finish in the Region VI tournament. He averaged 18.6 points and 4.5 assists in 34 games to lead the team. He was honored as part of the Third Team NJCAA All-American and First Team All-Region VI honors.
“Jeremy was a very good player at Seward and we recruited him pretty hard,” head coach Ronnie Arrow stated. “He decided he wanted to go to a large school like Kansas State, but I don’t think he would have been as interested in us now if we didn’t recruit him so hard. He only has one year left so he can sit this year, practice with us every day and learn our system. Next year, we graduate we three players so it’s a good time for a player his size to come here.”
Ferguson transfers from Morehead State after two seasons and will have two seasons of eligibility left. Ferguson, a native of Prattville, stands 6’7″ tall. He played in 37 games in two seasons at Morehead State and averaged 1.2 points per game. “After talking with Morehead State’s coaching staff, Dionte is a player they would like to have stayed, but he wanted to get closer to home,” Arrow said. “He’s a strong player that can get physical. He’s mostly a ‘4’ player that can go outside, but he’s an athlete and strong. We feel like, after spending a year getting to know our system, he has a really good chance of coming in and playing a lot the next two years.”
Jags Basketball Split First Two Games, Final Game Of Tour Tonight
South Alabama basketball got a head start on the season this week as they began their Canadian exhibition tour.
The Jags first game was against Windsor in Ontario, Canada. It took a big fourth-quarter rally in order for the Jags to send the game into overtime. But the Jags were outscored 8-6 in the overtime period to fall 82-80.
Junior Augustine Rubit led all players with 27 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double. Mychal Ammons also had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Seniors Javier Carter and Freddie Goldstein scored in double digits with 17 and 11 respectively.
“I thought we came out and played good early in the first four or five minutes but we let them get too far ahead,” said Jaguar Men’s head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow. “We had a great comeback but we just couldn’t finish it out. Hopefully we learned from it, which is what this is all about. Naturally we want to win, but I think this did us some good. We saw some things that we need to work on. Tomorrow night we’ll start a completely different bunch—we’ll probably play the two new inside guys a lot more than the ones back from last year and give them a chance to get some minutes.”
“We shot 38 percent (from the floor) in the first half, that was the start of it, and then we didn’t guard on top of it and that’s how we got down so much,” Arrow said.
The Jags entered the fourth quarter trailing 60-46 as the Jags were outpaced 26-17 in the third quarter.
Tuesday night the Jags took on Western (Ontario) University in London, Ontario, Canada. The Jags busted the game wide open with a 21-2 run in the third quarter as they ran away with a 68-47 win.
South Alabama was led by senior Xavier Roberson who scored a game-high 15 points off the bench. He shot 6-for-9 from the floor and 2-for4 from three point range and added three assists. Junior Augustine Rubit also came off the bench to add 11 points and two steals.
Coach Arrow started a completely different starting lineup from Monday nights loss. The new lineup came out of the gates quickly with a 5-1 run and used a 16-3 run to build a 21-11 lead by the end of the first quarter. Western got within five points in the second quarter but the Jags tightened up the defense. Western missed their first five shots of the second half and went 1-for-14 from the floor with six turnovers in the third quarter.
“I thought tonight we really got out and played hard,” said Jaguar Men’s head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow. “We had some guys that were hurt last night and didn’t play and they really helped us tonight. I thought our defense really helped us score.”
“Our effort defensively tonight was good,” he continued. “We practice that good defense leads to offense. I was telling our guys that I hope they understand that tonight because I thought this team had some good shooters and were quicker overall, and we used that defense tonight to take out some good shooters out of their range.”
The Jags will close out their trip won Thursday night at 6pm CDT.
Jaguar Men’s Basketball To Hold Public Scrimmage On Friday
The USA Men’s Basketball team will hold a public intrasquad scrimmage on Friday afternoon. The scrimmage will be held at the Striplin Practice Facility next to the Mitchell Center.
The scrimmage will begin at 4pm.
This is the teams final prep before they begin a preseason exhibition tour through Canada. They are scheduled to play three games next week against Canadian universities.
Go Jags!