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.
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.
Jags drop both road games in Florida
South Alabama started Sun Belt Conference play with a loss at Arkansas State but rebounded with a win against Middle Tennessee State in Mobile to start the new year. However the Jags road swing through the State of Florida didn’t go as well.
Last year, the Jags early season road swing through Florida saw a huge win over the University of Florida which was followed up by wins at FIU and FAU. This season, the Jags didn’t play the Gators and wound up on the losing end of both games agaist FAU and FIU.
South Alabama is a fairly young team. The only seniors are Tim Williams, Gary Redus and Raymond Sims and two juniors consist of Allyn Cooks and Antoine Lundy. But freshman Augustine Rubit has been a major contributor to the team.
South Alabama’s woes has come from outside the 3-point arc. When teams get decent looks at the basket and makes their shots, it’s quite hard to match up shot for shot. But the problems get worse when the Jags get behind and appear to have confidence problems when shooting.
The Jags have improved their free-throw shooting from the beginning of the season. Hopefully coach Ronnie Arrow can get the team back to a more even keel.
South Alabama begins a three game home stand on Saturday, January 15th when Louisiana Monroe visits. Followed by Western Kentucky on Thursday January 20th and finally Florida International on Saturday, January 22nd.
Jags Fall in Louisville 97-70
On Saturday, the Jags dropped to 2-5 on the road in Louisville, Kentucky when they took on the University of Louisville, why the Cardindals improve to 6-0. The Cardinals shot over 50% from the floor while the Jags shot much less than that to fall 97-70.
Jags sophomore Martino Brock lead the Jags in scoring with 24 points while adding 7 rebounds and a team best 4 assists. Also redshirt freshman Augustine Rubit got his third double-double of the season by scoring 15 points and tied for a game high 14 rebounds while also blocking two shots.
In addition to shooting over 50% from the floor, the Cardinals also shot over 51% from three-point range. The Jags on the other hand went 3-of-4 in the first half, but would go 2-of-12 in the second half from 3-point range.
A positive note for the game, the Jags shot over 75% from the free-throw line for the first time this year by converting 86.2%. However the Cardinals outscored the Jags on the inside 52-14.
The Jags will return to play on Sunday at the Mitchell Center when they host Houston Baptist.