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MOBILE, Ala. –University of South Alabama junior Augustine Rubit (Houston, Texas) scored his 1,000th career point, recorded a double-double with a game-high 19 points and 10 rebounds, and interim head coach Jeff Price earned his first victory at USA with a 77-62 win over Arkansas at Little Rock Saturday afternoon at the Mitchell Center.

The Jaguars are the only 3-0 team in the Sun Belt Conference and stand at 6-5 overall. The Trojans drop to 8-6 overall and 2-1 in the SBC.

“I was obviously very pleased with our effort,” said Price. “I thought we came out with good energy. After we got over that little lull at the beginning of the game we came out with great energy. I was really happy with the way we shared the ball. I think our assist-to-turnover ratio was really good. We were really good defensively against a pretty good team.”

Rubit became the 14th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark in a career and notched his conference-best sixth double-double in the process.

“Aug just impacts the game so much and I thought we did a good job getting him the ball,” Price said. “We were adamant about getting it in there. Aug will continue to get better to kick it out and when he does that we’re really good when he picks and chooses his time. They were doubling post-to-post to at times and triple teaming him, and the times he got it out we got good shots. Obviously Aug’s impact on the game is so tremendous.”

Rubit also moved into fourth place on USA’s career rebounding list with 689, passing Henry Williams (2001-04).

USA freshman Barrington Stevens III (Allen, Texas) recorded a career-high 17 points, including a 3-for-4 performance from behind the 3-point arc. Sophomore Mychal Ammons (Vicksburg, Miss.) made his first five shots of the afternoon and tallied 15 points, and junior Xavier Roberson (Houston, Texas) added 13.

After a slow start that saw the Jags fall behind 7-1 in the opening moments, they turned it around and used a 16-0 run to take a 29-15 lead with 8:38 left in the first half. South Alabama made six straight shots—four from 3-point land—as Stevens and senior Freddie Goldstein (Milwaukee, Wis.) each contributed two treys each.

“That three-minute flurry was basically what won us the game,” Price noted. “We finished well defensively and did what we had to do, but that quick flurry where we had a couple 3s and got it inside to Aug, it made some things happen. About three minutes in the first half really turned it. We got up 14 and got us going.”

The Trojans went over five minutes without a point during that stretch, missing six straight shots with three turnovers.

“I thought they moved the ball well,” said UALR head coach Steve Shields. “We weren’t good enough in transition defense, and they put some pressure on us getting the ball up the floor. We took the seven-point lead and when they jumped to the 14-point lead, they were hurting us in transition.”

UALR battled back and got a 3-pointer from Ben Dillard at the 9:29 mark to close to 52-50, its closest deficit since the 11:46 mark of the first half, but Rubit scored the next four points—two from the free throw line—to push the margin back up to six.

After another Dillard bucket, Roberson answered with a 3-pointer of his own, and less than a minute later hit twice at the foul line to extend USA’s lead to nine with 6:36 to play.

The Trojans would get only as close as seven once the rest of the way and the Jaguars outscored UALR 11-4 to close out the contest.

(I’m) really pleased the way we finished the game,” Price said. “We’re trying to get this team to get a little better killer instinct and learn to put teams away. Each time they got close we would build it up and it ended up being 15, and if we had made our free throws it probably would have been a little bit more.”

UALR’s John Gillon scored 10 of his team-high 14 in the second half, but shot 4 of 11 from the floor. Will Neighbor and Kemy Osse each had 11 points.

South Alabama returns to the court after Christmas and will wrap up its three-game homestand next Saturday at 7:05 p.m. against Arkansas State.

NOTES: The Jaguars forced a season-high 21 turnovers and scored a season-high 27 points off those miscues… Senior Javier Carter (Dallas, Texas) returned after missing Sunday’s game with a concussion and scored four points with four steals… One game after setting a new season high with a plus-16 rebounding margin vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, USA lost the battle of the boards 42-30… The Jags’ 15-to-10 assist-to-turnover ratio is a season best… The team’s 16-0 run is the best unanswered rally of the season, eclipsing Sunday’s 14-0 spurt… The Jaguars are 3-0 in the Sun Belt for the first time since 2009-10... Next on Rubit’s climb up USA’s all-time scoring chart is former All-American Michael Gerren, who had 1,028 points in his career, currently 12 ahead of Rubit.

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

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