02/20/06– FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JAGUARS WIN SUN BELT CONFERENCE WEST DIVISION TITLE WITH 64-51 WIN AT FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL

Box Score

CONTACT: Kit Strief

MIAMI - A team-high 14 points for senior Mario Jointer led the way as the South Alabama men's basketball team clinched the outright Sun Belt Conference West Division title on Monday night with a hard fought 64-51 win at Florida International. It is the first conference regular season title for the Jaguars (19-6, 10-3 SBC) since the 2000-01 season and the first division title since the conference split into divisions.

"This is a basketball team that had our number last year," Jaguar head coach John Pelphrey said. "I am very proud of our team. FIU is one of the most physical teams in our league and it showed tonight."

On a tough shooting night for both teams had the game tied at eight with 11:52 to play in the first half. USA proceeded to go on a 16-0 run over the next 7:44 to build a 22-8 lead. Unlike Thursday night at Troy when the Jaguars were draining 3's from everywhere, USA made its first trey at the 7:45 mark by junior Leandro Buboltz to push the lead to five points.

After jumping to the 22-8 lead with 4:07 left, the teams scored a combined seven points the rest of the half as the Jaguars took a 25-11 lead into halftime. The 11 points by FIU is the lowest output for a Jaguar opponent in a half this season.

For the half, three Jaguars had six points with Jointer 3-of-6 from the floor and four rebounds. Buboltz had a pair of treys as he was the only Jaguar to make a 3-pointer in the half. The team went 2-of-12 from beyond the arc in the opening stanza. Sophomore Demetric Bennett had six points on 2-of-4 from the field and 2-of-3 from the line.

FIU's leading scorer, Ivan Almonte who scored 30 points in a win over Troy on Thursday, played just four minutes in the opening half and scored two points. Elvis Lora had five of the Golden Panthers' 11 points.

USA was 10-of-31 for the half from the field and 5-of-9 from the line. FIU was a dismal 5-of-18 from the field and 1-of-9 from beyond the arc and 0-of-6 from the line. USA out rebounded the Panthers 22-18. FIU also committed 17 first half turnovers to the Jaguars' eight.

The Jaguars opened the second half with a trey by junior Carlos Smith just 13 seconds in and another trey by Jointer built the lead to 20 points with 18:48 to play. The teams traded buckets for the two minutes before a trey by Johwen Villegas cut the Jaguar lead to 13 with 16:06 to play.

A jumper by Jointer with 12:15 left pushed the Jaguar lead back to 16 points, but FIU went on a 12-0 run over the next 6:16 to cut the deficit to four points with 6:57 to play. Almonte, who sat out most of the first half, got into the action and scored 10 of the 12 points during the run.

A huge jumper in the lane by Smith stopped the bleeding and put the Jaguars back up six with 6:39 to play, but FIU would not go away. Villegas put home a dunk to cut it back to four, but Jaguar senior Chey Christie got the hoop and the harm and put the Jaguars up seven on the old-fashion 3-point play moments later.

Almonte made 1-of-2 free throws with 4:58 to play to cut it to 46-40, but the Jaguars were finding their shooting touch as junior Stephen Cowherd nailed a trey to put the Jags up nine with 4:27 to play. A pair of Bennett free throws pushed the lead back to double-digits with 3:12 to play.

A missed layup by Almonte that would have cut it back to nine followed with a big trey by Smith that gave the Jags a 14-point lead with 2:01 to play and basically put the game out of reach.

USA kept the lead in double-figures the rest of the way making 8-of-9 free throws in the final two minutes to seal the 64-51 win and takes the division crown.

Besides the 14 points by Jointer, Bennett had 13 points off the bench and Smith had 10. Bennett was huge at the free throw line going 7-of-9. Smith had two big second half 3-pointers. As a team, USA was 10-of-19 from the field in the second half for 52.6 percent and was 20-of-50 for the game for 40 percent. From downtown the Jags were 6-of-16 and from the line the team was 18-of-26.

FIU had a game-high 17 points from Almonte in which 15 came in the second half. Villegas chipped in 10 points. The team was19-of-43 from the field for 44.2 percent and were a horrid 3-of-17 from beyond the arc and 10-of-20 from the charity stripe. FIU had 24 turnovers and USA won the battle of the boards 33-31.

"Everyone contributed tonight as a team and I couldn't be more proud of how our guys competed tonight," Pelphrey said. "It was a hard fought physical basketball game tonight and our guys found a way to dig it out."

USA returns home to close out the regular season against Denver on Thursday at approximately 8:05 p.m. and on Saturday against North Texas also at 8:05 p.m.