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TROY, Ala. – University of South Alabama senior Gary Redus (Decatur, Ala.) scored a career-high 32 points and the Jaguars survived a last-gasp attempt by Troy in an 83-78 win Thursday night at Sartain Hall.

USA gets its second road win of the year and goes to 9-10 overall and 3-5 in the Sun Belt Conference. Troy drops to 4-16, 2-6.

“Take it and run,” Jaguar head coach Ronnie Arrow said of the road win. “I don’t care what it looked like, it doesn’t matter. A win is a win, let’s take it and go home and get ready for the next one.”

Redus set a new season high in the first half alone with 19 points and had a new personal-best five 3-pointers before halftime. He finished the night 7-for-8 from long distance and 9-for-12 overall from the floor.

The seven treys are tied for fifth in school history. He had not made more than one trifecta in a game all season.

“I hope he saved up,” Arrow said about Redus. “He shot pretty well last game too. With (Antione) Lundy coming back, that’ll give us another inside person that can move ‘G’ (Redus) strictly outside which I think will help him a lot.”

The Jags led by 12 with 8:24 to play in the game but allowed eight straight points to the Trojans to cut the deficit to four, and after two free throws from sophomore Martino Brock (Memphis, Tenn.), a 3-pointer from Regis Huddleston brought Troy to within three (67-64) with 6:12 on the clock. It was the closest the Trojans had been since the 2:16 mark of the first half.

USA stretched the advantage back up to seven thanks to six consecutive made free throws but Huddleston connected on another triple, and a three-point play from Vernon Taylor cut it to one with 1:02 to play.

After Troy’s Bernard Toombs hit two free throws with 32 seconds on the clock to trail by two (80-78), South Alabama turned the ball over, but Troy was unable to capitalize and committed a turnover of its own. Cooks hit 1 of 2 free throws at the other end and an off-balance 3-point attempt with five seconds left by Huddleston was short.

Rubit closed out the scoring by hitting two at the charity stripe.

“I thought we did a good job of shooting our free throws at the end and Aug came up with some key rebounds,” Arrow said. “We want to hold teams to 41 percent (from the floor) and we held them to 43 percent, which was good. We were scheduled to press and for whatever reason our guys weren’t there so we went half-court and changed defenses from man to zone and came away with the win.”

The game featured several momentum swings in the early going. South Alabama scored the first eight points of the contest before giving up the next 12. Troy eventually reeled off a 22-2 run to lead 22-10.

USA countered with a 12-1 spurt to pull within one, and later, closed the half with a 22-4 rally to go into the break on top 44-31.

Jaguar redshirt freshman Augustine Rubit (Houston, Texas) tied his career high of 18 rebounds and recorded his league-leading 10th double-double of the season with 12 points.

USA junior Allyn Cooks (Bryan, Texas) tallied a season-best 19 points and added four assists.

Troy placed four in double-digit scoring, led by Huddleston and Will Weathers who had 17 apiece. Taylor poured in 16 points and Toombs notched a double-double with 14 points and 12 boards. Weathers also had a double-double with 11 assists.

South Alabama hosts Louisiana at Lafayette Sunday afternoon at 4:05 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Sun Belt Network (CSS in Mobile) and is K-12 Student Appreciation game which means all K-12 students in Mobile and Baldwin County get free admission into both games.

NOTES: Arrow now has 99 career Sun Belt wins and is in third place all-time, four behind Dickey Nutt who had 103 from 1996-08 at Arkansas State… USA’s 41 points in the first half are the most since scoring 48 vs. Houston Baptist on Dec. 12… The Jags tied their season high with 10 3-pointers… Redus had the most 3-pointers in a game since Domonic Tilford tied the school record of eight Feb. 10, 2008, also at Troy… Redus has the second-most points by a Jaguar this season (Tim Williams 33 vs Central Michigan)… USA outscored Troy 30-4 in the first two minutes and last five minutes of the first half… The Jags committed a season-high 22 turnovers… Sophomore Javier Carter (Dallas, Texas) grabbed six rebounds, his most since pulling down seven Dec. 27 vs. Mobile.

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).

—USA—