The Jags dropped their first game of the Sun Belt schedule on New Years Eve when they had a troublesome first half in Murfreesboro, TN against Middle Tennessee State. MTSU is 13-2 on the season and 2-0 in the Sun Belt which is first place in the eastern division and overall in the conference. Arkansas-Little Rock leads the western division with a 2-0 Sun Belt record but an overall record of 5-11 on the season.

The South Alabama Men’s Basketball Team will host the North Texas Mean Green Thursday, January 5th at the Mitchell Center.  Tip-off is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.  Tickets start at $5.  While you’re there, take advantage of $1 Hot Dogs from 6-7 p.m. during the pre-game.

Come out and support Head Coach Ronnie Arrow, Sun Belt Conference Pre-Season Player of the Year Augustine Rubit, and the Jaguars in the first home Sun Belt Conference game of the 2011-12 season.

Saturday, January 7th is $1 Day…all tickets in the upper level are only $1…Hot dogs and Pepsi’s are also $1 all day.  The Jaguars will play Denver University in a doubleheader with the Lady Jags tip-off at 1 p.m. and the Men’s team will tip-off at 3:30 p.m.  The Men’s game will be televised live on CSS so come out with your facepaint and signs.

Tickets are available in advance at the south side ticket office inside the Mitchell Center Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.  You may also purchase tickets at any walk up ticket window the day / night of the game.  Tickets start at $5.  For more information you can call 461-1USA or visit www.usajaguars.com.

Upcoming Home Basketball Games:

Thursday, January 5
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. North Texas @ 7:05 p.m.

Saturday, January 7 (Doubleheader)
$1 Day…All upper level seats are $1 for this doubleheader…$1 Hot Dogs and Pepsis all day too!
South Alabama Women’s Basketball vs. Denver @ 1 p.m.
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Denver @ 3:30 p.m.

The South Alabama Men’s Basketball Team will host the Braves of Alcorn State Sunday, December 11th at the Mitchell Center.  Tip-off is scheduled at 3:05 p.m.  Tickets start at $5.  Take advantage of $1 Hot Dogs from 2-3 p.m.  Come out and support Head Coach Ronnie Arrow, Sun Belt Conference Pre-Season Player of the Year Augustine Rubit, and the Jaguars as they prepare for conference play.

You may purchase tickets at any walk up ticket window today.  Tickets start at $5.  For more information you can call 461-1USA or visit www.usajaguars.com.

Upcoming Home Basketball Games:

Saturday, December 10 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Women’s Basketball vs. Talladega @ 7:05 p.m.

Sunday, December 11 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Alcorn State @ 3:05 p.m.

Monday, December 19 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Georgia Southern @ 7:05 p.m.

Go Jags!

The South Alabama Men’s Basketball Team will host the Southern Miss Golden Eagles Wednesday night, December 7th at the Mitchell Center in the second game of a doubleheader.  Tip-off for the men’s game will be 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Lady Jags versus the Spring Hill College Badgers scheduled at 5:05 p.m.  Tickets start at $5 and one ticket is good for both games.  Take advantage of $1 Hot Dogs from 4-7 p.m.  Come out and support Head Coach Ronnie Arrow, Sun Belt Conference Pre-Season Player of the Year Augustine Rubit, and the Jaguars as they go for four wins in a row.

You may purchase your tickets in advance at the south side Ticket Office inside the Mitchell Center Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.  You may also purchase tickets at any walk up ticket window the day / night of the game.  Tickets start at $5.  One $5 ticket is good for both games.  For more information you can call 461-1USA or visit www.usajaguars.com.

Upcoming Home Basketball Games:

Wednesday, December 7 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Women’s Basketball vs. Spring Hill College @ 5:05 p.m.
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Southern Miss @ 7:05 p.m.

Saturday, December 10 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Women’s Basketball vs. Talladega @ 7:05 p.m.

Sunday, December 11 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Alcorn State @ 3:05 p.m.

Monday, December 19 at the Mitchell Center
South Alabama Men’s Basketball vs. Georgia Southern @ 7:05 p.m.

Go Jags!

Augustine Rubit was the leading scorer for the Jags with 20, a season high. While Xavier Roberson added 19, a career high also. Antoine Lundy, another career high with 13 points. While Javier Carter had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

South Alabama’s run started in the final eight minutes of the second half after LSU took the lead by a score of 61-50. They Jags then scored seven consecutive points. The run would be ended with a field goal by LSU but the Jags would tie the game at 63 after two baskets by Lundy and another by Carter.

Rubit would give the Jags the lead with 3:01 left in the second half, it’s first lead since the first half. The teams would exchange baskets before LSU would sink two foul shots to pull ahead 67-66 with 2:13 left in the second half. Two more foul shots would extend the LSU lead to three points.

Freddie Goldstein would make one free throw with about 18 seconds left in the second half. The Jags would maintain possession after he would miss the second shot, but the ball would go out of bounds on LSU. Goldstein would then tie the game at the buzzer on a jumper sending the game into overtime tied at 69.

Carter would give the Jags the lead in overtime after sinking two foul shots. But LSU would make two foul shots to counter, but Roberson would hit two key baskets. Rubit would seal the game with a field goal with 24 seconds left in the overtime period for your final score of USA 79 – LSU 75.

South Alabama returns to the hardwood on Wednesday, November 30 when they host UAB at the Mitchell Center for a 7:05 p.m. tipoff. Come out and support your Jags!

The University of Alabama football team will be playing MSU later in the day, so tune into WNSP 105.5 at 1pm for the Jaguars basketball game, then you can tune in to ESPN at 6:45pm for kickoff of the Crimson Tide.

Unfortunately Auburn’s football game will overlap the end of the Jags basketball game since their game is scheduled to kickoff at 2:30pm in Athens Georgia and will be broadcast on CBS.

South Alabama also announced two players signing with the Men’s basketball team for next season. Antoine Allen is a 6’1″, 185 pound guard currently attending Palm Beach State Junior College. He originally signed with Miami FL and will have two years of eligibility remaining.

Delvin Dickerson is a 6’5″ 200 pound forward and currently attends Westbury Christian High School in Houston Texas. He will be a freshman next year at South Alabama.

Coach Arrow said it was exactly what he expected, lots of learning for the guards. “The post men know from years past what we’re doing,” Said Coach Arrow. “For the guards, it’s a whole new ballgame. We’ve only been going a couple of days but yesterday we had a good practice. They showed that they learned a lot from the first day–not everything, but that’s expected.”

However not all positions are new. Augustine Rubit returns after being named 2011 Sun Belt Conference freshman of the year to lead the post players. “Needless to say, Aug and Javier are doing well and Lundy has come back wanting to do really well this year,” Arrow said. “He’s lost a lot of weight and is moving so much better. He’s looking like the old Lundy that we recruited, going after rebounds and doing those types of things. Hersey has been a pleasant surprise, he’s showing more physicality and finishing power, which we were hoping to see. All of our post men are competing.” Arrow was talking about Javier Carter, Antoine Lundy and DeAndre Hersey.

The current game of basketball is very heavy in guard play. So the coaching staff is trying to build the team from the ground up and be ready for the season opening game on November 12.

“We’re trying not to overdose them right now,” Coach Arrow said. “We’re trying to break it down as much as possible. I’ve tried to go back to four years ago when we had a really good team and I was new, the coaching staff was new and the players didn’t know our system. When you have all new guards, that’s pretty much how it is. I’ve tried to go back and break it down like that. They don’t react the way you want because their brains are still learning and it’s keeping them from going all out, but yesterday (Sunday) I saw a lot of improvement from guys that were bewildered out there.”

The Jaguars first exhibition game is coming up on Wednesday, November 2 against Spring Hill with tip-off set for 7:05 pm.

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 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.

The Jags opened the season with a win over Spring Hill College 81-53 in the Mitchell Center. But then they followed that up with a big loss in Hattiesburg against Southern Miss 93-58. Then the Jags regrouped and won against Central Michigan in overtime 82-76.

South Alabama started the game with some poor shooting but overcame it late in the first half with a 12-3 run to put the Jags down by only three at halftime.

However, the second half saw the Blazers take over the game. They started the second half with a 10-0 run with back to back 3′s. The Jags Augustine Rubit then make two foul shots followed by another run by the Blazers going 15-0 this time. This huge run by the Blazers, 25-2 in fact, put the Jags up 61-35. After that, the Blazers coasted to an 82-58 victory.

South Alabama then took on LSU in the Coors Classic at the Mitchell Center on Sunday. The first half saw LSU drain 12 of 17 from outside the 3 point line in the first half on the way to their 25 point halftime lead against the Jaguars. In the first half, the Tigers shot 66.7% from the floor and 76.9% from 3-point range in route to the 48-23 halftime lead.

LSU would stretch their lead out to 28 points with 15:10 remaining in the second half. But the Tigers could not keep the hot hand and their shots cooled off while the Jaguars fought hard to make a game of it.

While the Jags were not threatening to take the lead, the Jaguars did cut the lead to 13 with 2:50 left in the game and capped off a 15-5 run. However the Jags would only make one field goal the rest of the way and would not get closer than 12 points to the Tigers lead. Martino Brock lead the team with 15 points in the game.

With these two losses combined with the USM loss and with a trip to Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, some fans have asked the question if Coach Ronnie Arrow needs to go. I think it’s too early in the season to be calling for a coaches head in this scenerio. These first five games hardly make the season.

But some players that he has recruited have not turned out for the best. The teams APR has brought the NCAA ire upon the program. With two players leaving the team while they were ineligible, the NCAA has penalized the team by taking away 2 scholarships and restricting the teams practice hours over the course of a week to 16 instead of 20. Then combine that with the team appearing to be completely unprepared at times in the USM, UAB and LSU games and one can understand how some fans could be irate.

Coach Arrow seems to have some impressive recruits ready to come into his program. The Jags have lots of basketball left to be played this season. So lets get out to the Mitchell Center and cheer on those kids, both the Men and the Women, and show them that Jaguar Nation is behind them just as much as we were behind the football team this season.

Go Jags!

From all of us here at Thunderjags, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. We hope everyone enjoys their time with friends and family. Don’t eat too much though!

The men’s basketball team will be back in action on Sunday when they host LSU at the Mitchell Center. Tip-off is set for 3pm.

Go Jags!