MOBILE, Ala. – Among the benefits for a basketball program taking a foreign tour every four years is the head start the coaches and players get on the new season and a better understanding of where they stand when practice begins in October.

After 10 days of practice and three exhibition games in Canada last week, University of South Alabama men’s basketball head coach Ronnie Arrow has a better idea of where his team will be at the official start of practice on Oct. 12.

“The timing couldn’t have been better, both for the coaches and players,” he said. “As far as the coaching staff is concerned, we got to see and familiarize ourselves with our players, to see exactly who could play where, if they could play in certain spots and we got to see certain offenses and defenses. The players got to see what we could have this year.

“Hopefully our players will retain what we’ve learned, so that when we start back up, they will be that much further ahead. On Oct. 12, we’ll be so much further ahead with the knowledge of our players and plays, and we’ll be able to start things earlier this year than we would have otherwise.”

The Jaguars opened the tour with an overtime loss to Windsor but bounced back with two straight wins by an average of 21.5 points, including a 92-70 win over Windsor to avenge the earlier defeat.

South Alabama will rely heavily on its inside game during the season, and if the exhibitions were any indication, the posts are in midseason form already. As a group, the four main ‘bigs’ and sophomore Mychal Ammons (Vicksburg, Miss.) combined to hit 52.9 percent of their shots and averaged a total of 46.7 points and 26.7 rebounds.

Junior Augustine Rubit (Houston, Texas) led the team with 18.0 points per game and shot 61.8 percent from the floor. In the opener vs. Windsor, he led all players with 27 points and 11 rebounds and added three steals. In the final two games Rubit missed just three of his 14 field goal attempts.

In his two starts senior Javier Carter (Dallas, Texas) averaged 14 points per outing, with a 17-point effort on 6 of 8 shooting vs. Windsor in the first game of the tour. The second-leading shot blocker in school history also rejected three shots in three games.

The Jags’ two newcomers in the low post, junior Gregoryshon Magee (New Orleans, La.) and Viktor Juricek (Prievidza, Slovakia), made the most of their limited playing time by recording one double-digit rebounding game each. Magee went 7-for-11 from the floor and added 10 points to go along with his 10 boards in the finale vs. Windsor.

“We take pride in getting the ball inside,” Arrow said. “For the post men to score, I thought our guards did an exceptional job of getting them the ball, especially this early in the year. Our post men did a good job of finishing once they got it inside. We knew Aug was going to rebound and Javier was going to block some shots, but I was glad to see our two new inside guys do well. They got a taste of the physicality they’re going to have to withstand to play at this level. They did well with that.”

After allowing Windsor to score 82 points in game one, the USA defense flexed its muscles in the final two games. In the Jaguars’ two wins, the team held the opposition to 58.5 points and 28.9 percent shooting, including 18.0 percent from behind the 3-point line. Western (Ont.) managed just 47 points for the contest and was outscored 21-2 in the third quarter alone.

“This could be one of the best defensive teams that I’ve been around,” Arrow noted. “We have some things that we’d like to clean up, but I think the guys bought into our system early and we brought in players that take pride in their defense. We continued to get more physical and understand our realm of thinking on defense. On the flip side of that, I think our guys saw that defense leads to offense. That’s where you beat teams by a good margin.”

Two key reasons for the defense improvement over the final two contests were juniors Xavier Roberson (Houston, Texas) and Antoine Allen (Baltimore, Md.). Roberson, who missed the final 16 games of the 2011-12 season with an injury, played just eight minutes vs. Windsor, and Allen missed the game entirely with a slight injury. Their increased presence in the two wins translated into a more intense defensive effort.

“They bring a state of toughness that if you’re going to have a good defensive team, not only do your inside guys need to be tough, but your outside guys have to be tough too,” Arrow commented. “Once they got on the court, they gave us more toughness. They also gave us some depth, where maybe in the first game some of the guys got tired. Those two guys enjoy playing defense, they understand what we want done on defense and they take pride in it.”

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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