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BOCA RATON, Fla. – With just 17 points and 27 percent shooting in the first half, the University of South Alabama men’s basketball team was unable to overcome an early deficit in a 65-57 Sun Belt Conference loss at Florida Atlantic Thursday night at FAU Arena.

FAU goes to 10-6 overall and 3-0 in the conference for the first time since 2003-04 when it was a member of the Atlantic Sun. USA falls to 7-7 and 1-2.

“The first half wasn’t our offense—we just didn’t score,” said Jaguar head coach Ronnie Arrow. “We weren’t picking, we weren’t hitting the open man, and in the second half they shot the ball well from the 3-point line.”

Senior Tim Williams (Pontiac, Mich.) recorded his second double-double of the season with game-high totals of 21 points and 10 rebounds. Redshirt freshman Augustine Rubit (Houston, Texas) had eight points and 10 boards while DeAndré Hersey (Carrollton, Ala.) tallied a season-best 10 points.

The Jaguars were without sophomore Martino Brock (Memphis, Tenn.) who sat out the game with a deep thigh bruise.

“Martino is one of our scoring threats,” said Arrow. “Aug, Tim and Martino have been our three major scoring threats. If he’s not in there, somebody has got to step up. We need some 3-point shooting. Teams are starting to sink in on Aug and until we get some outside shooting from our guards they’re going to continue to do that.”

USA grabbed an early 6-3 lead but a scoring drought of almost eight minutes allowed FAU to go on a 14-0 run to go ahead 17-6 with just under nine minutes left before halftime. The Jags missed seven consecutive shots and committed three turnovers.

South Alabama scored the next seven but Florida Atlantic responded with seven unanswered of its own and eventually went into halftime ahead 27-17.

The Jags put just four points on the board in the final 6:22 of the opening half and converted 27.6 percent (8-29) from the floor.

FAU opened the second half with a three by Raymond Taylor and led by 12 two minutes in after another Taylor three before USA attempted a comeback with an 8-0 run. However, the Owls came back with nine straight points, thanks to two Greg Gantt triples to kick the margin back up to 13.

Another Taylor trifecta with 9:43 left in the contest gave Florida Atlantic its largest lead (14). Hersey contributed four points in a 6-0 USA spurt to get it down to eight, and later, back-to-back layups from Rubit capped off an 8-2 rally to get within 53-47 with 5:36 remaining. But the Owls answered once again, this time with a 7-0 run to extend their advantage to 13 with three minutes to go in the contest.

“Every time we cut it to four or six points it went back up to 10 or 11,” said Arrow. “We didn’t get the stops that we wanted after we got close.”

FAU had three in double-digit scoring with Taylor leading the pack with 15 on four 3-pointers. Gantt and Brett Royster tallied 14 points each and Royster added four blocks.

The Jags shot 32.3 percent for the game, their lowest since Dec. 1 at Alabama, and hit 3 of 18 from behind the arc.

“I thought we did some things offensively, we just didn’t score out of it,” said Arrow. “The end result is scoring and we didn’t score as much as we could have. You aren’t going to win too many games scoring 17 points (in a half). We’re lucky we played as good on defense as we did.”

South Alabama stays in South Florida this weekend to play at Florida International Saturday night at 7 p.m. EST.

NOTES: Thursday was the first time this season the Jaguars outrebounded their opponent (47-29) and lost (7-1 record)… It was also the team’s first loss by fewer than 10 points… A season-high 24 of the team’s 47 rebounds came on the offensive end… USA recorded 19 second-chance points on their offensive boards… Williams is averaging 23 points in his last two games… He had two blocks and two steals vs. the Owls... USA has only used eight players in each of its three Sun Belt games… Rubit has nine or more rebounds in every game since Dec. 1… Redus tied his career-best with nine boards.

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).

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