BOWLING GREEN, Ky. --- A huge Western Kentucky run in the first half and a career-high 31 points by A.J. Slaughter were more than enough to pace the Hilltoppers to a 99-69 victory over the University of South Alabama men’s basketball team Thursday night at Diddle Arena.

WKU wins for the third straight game to improve to 16-12 and 9-6 in the Sun Belt Conference. South Alabama drops to 15-13 and 7-9.

“We just no-showed,” said USA head coach Ronnie Arrow. “That’s the second time this year that’s happened. I was just really disappointed with our effort.”

The loss is the Jaguars’ worst this season and all-time against Western Kentucky. The Jags allowed a season-high 99 points and 53.1% shooting night from the floor.

The two teams traded scores early and USA held a 9-7 lead four minutes into the game. For the next 8 ½ minutes, WKU went on a 29-8 run, includes stretches of eight and nine consecutive points.

The Hilltoppers added another 7-0 run later in the period and went into the half up 53-30.

“We didn’t stop anybody the whole time,” said Arrow. “We were scoring the first five minutes but we weren’t stopping anybody. Then we just stopped scoring and started going one-on-one. When we do that, bad things are going to happen. ”

It was the Slaughter show in the first half as he tallied 21 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the floor. He made all four of his 3-point attempts and all five at the charity stripe.

Western Kentucky converted 64.0% of its field goals before halftime and also shot 61.5% from long-range and 100% from the foul line.

“We’re limited in depth and we’ve got to learn to take time off the clock and work the clock far better than what we did tonight, especially against a good team like that.”

The closest the Jaguars got in the second half was 17 points.

WKU’s Steffphon Pettigrew and Sergio Kerusch had 13 points each and Jeremy Evans and Jordan Swing added 11 apiece.

South Alabama junior Tim Williams (Pontiac, Mich.) poured in a team-high 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting. Junior Gary Redus II (Decatur, Ala.) and freshmen Martino Brock (Memphis, Tenn.) and Javier Carter (Dallas, Texas) all had 11 points each.

USA concludes the road portion of its schedule Saturday at Middle Tennessee. Tip-time is 7 p.m. and the game will be televised on ESPN Plus and ESPN360.com.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com.  Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

NOTES: Slaughter’s 31 points are the most USA has allowed to a single player this year… The Jaguars last allowed 99 or more points Feb. 20, 2002 vs. Bethune-Cookman in a 104-99 double-overtime win… It was the most given up in regulation since Feb. 5, 1995… WKU’s bench outscored USA’s 42-5 as the Jaguar starters combined for 64 of the team’s 69 points… The Toppers won the rebounding battle 43-24… USA freshman Jayson Guerrier (Winter Springs, Fla.) scored his first career points.

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