Jags Defeat #18 Florida in Gainesville
The Jags got what might be their biggest victory in a long time when they defeated the #18 ranked Florida Gators on Tuesday, 67-66. It’s probably the biggest win since defeating Alabama in the NCAA Tournament in 1989.
The Jags lead the game most of the first half but never pulled out to much of a lead. At halftime the score was tied at 43. Then early in the second half it looked like the Jags were going to be a one half team again but the Jags came back to life and fought their way back into the lead. They would even push that lead out to seven points at 61-54 with 7:42 left in the game. But Florida wasn’t about to give up just yet.
The Gators went on a 7-0 run, the final two to tie were free throws. Then two more free throws gave the Gators the lead with 2:04 left to play. They would hold the lead until the final shot by DeAndre Hersey with 1.8 seconds left.
The Jags got the ball back with with seconds left in the game. They in-bounded the ball and carried it down the court to around the time line when the Jags used their final timeout of the game with 12.7 seconds left. The play was drawn up for Tim Williams, the games leading scorer, to drive the lane. But when Williams’ missed, Hersey was there for the follow up tip-in.
A desperation three point attempt from beyond half court bounced off the rim and the Jags celebrated on the floor in front of stunned Florida fans.
Williams, as stated earlier, lead all players in scoring with 21 on 8 of 19 shooting, 3 of 4 from outside the arc. Martino Brock was next with nine points and Sherrer with eight. Five other Jags scored in the game as well.
The Jags won despite shooting a mere 28.1% in the second half. But Florida shot even worse only making 23.1% of their shots. Also the gators could only muster a 3 for 22 night from behind the arc. The Jags were unusually good from outside shooting 7 of 11 from 3 point range.
Coach Arrow was ecstatic after the game. “That was a great game,” he said. “The people here got to see two really good teams go at it. I told our guys to play for 40 minutes which would allow us to get a really nice Christmas present. I thought that both teams played hard. We had different people make big plays and that’s what a good team does.”
And what a Christmas present they gave to themselves and all of the Jaguar fans watching on television, listening to the radio, streaming on espn360 and watching the scoring updates from their phone. It was even featured as the lead in to ESPN SportsCenter and ESPN News.
Here is the video from ESPN:
Jags Four Game Winning Streak Snapped By Southern Miss
The Jags had their four game winning streak snapped by Southern Miss on Saturday, 66-54. The Jaguars record is now 7-3 on the season while Southern Miss rebounds from their first loss of the season to go to 6-1.
The Jags led 18-11 with 11:44 left in the first half before the Golden Eagles went on a 15-0 run. The Jags would answer with a 7-0 run themselves to cut the lead down to one. The Golden Eagles would take a two point lead into the locker room for halftime.
The first ten minutes of the second half saw Southern Miss hold the lead by as few as one and as many as seven. But an old fashioned three point play coupled with back-to-back layups would put them up by 11 with 6:41 to play in the game.
The Golden Eagles would push their lead out to 61-47 with under five minutes to play and the Jags could not get within 10 points of them the rest of the way.
The Jags shot a season low of 29.1% from the floor and a mere 24% in the second half.
Coach Arrow spoke after the game. “The bottom line is they did a really good job tonight,” he said. “We couldn’t stop Gary Flowers. He hurt us on the boards and shooting. He backed us down and he shot over us. We didn’t shoot the ball at all, but they had a lot to do with that. They took it right to us. We played immaturely tonight, and that’s just the way that it is. Hopefully, we’ll grow from it.”
“It seemed like we always had the wrong guy shooting the ball,” continued Coach Arrow. “We didn’t attack the zone very well, and that’s my fault. We just didn’t get our guys ready for a zone. We worked on it, but evidently I did a poor job of getting them to understand exactly what had to be done.”
Allyn Cooks lead the Jags with 13 points, followed by Bryan Sherrer with 11 and Tim Williams with 10 to round out the double digit scoring for the Jags.
The Jags will host UALR on Wednesday with an 8:05pm tipoff on ESPN2.
Jags Win Fourth In A Row And Their First Against University of Mobile
The Jags won their first ever meeting against the University of Mobile Rams on Wednesday 70-51. The Jags secured the win with a 17-0 run in the first half to cruise to the victory.
This was the fourth consecutive win by the Jags to go to 7-2 on the season. The Jags never trailed in the game. After the Rams pulled within one point with 13:50 left in the first half at 14-13, the Jags ripped off 17 straight points over the next 9:29 before a three pointer by Mobile ended the run. At that time the Jags were up 31-16.
At halftime, the Jags were up 38-23 on 50% shooting from the floor. Early in the second half the Jags would stretch it out to 24 points and at one point they would lead by as much as 26. The Rams would put together a 12-0 run late in the second half to pull within 14 points of the Jags but they would score the final five points of the game.
Three Jags would share the honor of lead scorer for the team. Tim Williams, Bryan Sherrer and LaShun Watson would all score 13 points. The next highest scorer was Martino Brock with nine points.
The Jags next game will be on Saturday at the Mitchell Center when they host Southern Mississippi for a 7:05pm tipoff. Then they open play their first Sun Belt team, University of Arkansas-Little Rock at on Wednesday, December 16 which will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Go Jags!
Jags Get A Big Win Over Arkansas For Coach Arrow’s 300th Div-I Victory
Head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow won his 300th Division I game as the Jags defeated Arkansas 74-61 on Sunday in Fayetteville. This win was the Jags third straight win to improve to 6-2 on the season while the Razorbacks and John Pelphrey dropped their third straight to fall to 2-4 on the season.
The game was a series of runs with the Jags jumping out 15-2 to begin the game but then the Razorbacks had a run of their own going 17-1 to take the lead at halftime with the score of 34-30.
Trading scores early in the second half, the Hogs tied it up at 40 each with a three pointer. But it would be the last time Arkansas would tie the game because South Alabama would make a run of 17 points over a stretch of 5:17 to hold Arkansas without a score for six minutes and without a field goal for 8:42.
The Hogs would only get to within 11 points on twice but each time the Jags would put an end to their attempted rallies.
Arkansas only shot 30% (6-for-30) in the second half and had only three field goals through the 5:20 mark. While the SEC’s leading scorer with 28.2 points per game, Rotnei Clark, was held to 19 points with only six scored after halftime.
Martino Brock lead the Jags and all players with 21 points while Bryan Sherrer and Tim Williams were the only other Jags in double figures with 11 points each.
This marked the first win at an SEC school since December 1, 2000 at Auburn and makes their record against Arkansas 1-5 all time.
South Alabama will take some time off for final exams, they will return to the hardwood on December 9 when they host University of Mobile.
Jaguar Men Fall At Tulsa
On Saturday the Jags basketball team traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma to face the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa won 84-62 over the Jags to stay undefeated at 4-0 while the Jags fell to 3-2 for the season.
Tulsa put on a showcase of rebounding by pulling down 53 boards en route to their victory. The Jags kept it close in the first half until a late 12-0 run by Tulsa (10 of which came from the free throw line) put them ahead for good. The Jags could only get within 12 points twice in the second half.
The Jags did not match-up well against the Golden Hurricane. With a 7′ center and a pair of 6’10” forwards, the Jags were just outsized and out reached on the boards.
Tulsa made 38 of 50 free throw attempts which accounted for 45% of their scoring offense while the Jags defense held them to 38.9% shooting from the floor for the game. However the Jags were called for 29 fouls which lead to the 50 trips to the line.
Coach Arrow said after the game, “We held them to 38 percent shooting and did what we wanted to there and put 62 points up on the board,” said Arrow. “But when you shoot 50 free throws you’re going to score a lot of points.”
Tim Williams lead the Jags with 17 points, five rebounds and four assists. While Gary Redus II scored 11 off the bench.
Coach Arrow also commented about the Jags rebounding after the game. “We’re still not rebounding like we should,” said Arrow. “We have guys standing around. Our ‘3s’, ‘4s’ and ‘5s’ have got to rebound better than what we’re doing.”
The Jags will host the Second Annual USA Thanksgiving Classic on Wednesday and Thursday. The first game has Georgia State facing Utah Valley at 5pm then the Jags will face Alcorn State at 7:05pm.
Also announced on Friday, Coach Ronnie Arrow signed Labree Sledge of Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas to a National Letter of Intent to play for the Jags.
Tyler went 24-6 last season and tied for the North Zone championship with a 14-5 league record. Tyler lost in the semis to Paris JC who was led by current Jag Raymond Sims.
Sledge ranked fourth on his team in scoring with 9.8 average per game while hitting 63 3-pointers. He averages 42.9 percent from 3 point range and had 67 steals.
Coach Arrow had this to say about the signee. “Sledge is one of the best shooters in that conference,” said Coach Arrow. “You always have room for a shooter of his caliber. Not only that, but his high school coach said he was the best defender on the ball they had. So he brings shooting ability plus defensive ability, which is good.”
Go Jags!