Game Notes

MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama men's basketball head coach Matthew Graves will get his first look at the 2015-16 Jaguars Thursday when they welcome Mobile to the Mitchell Center for an exhibition contest.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Subscribers to South Alabama All-Access can watch online and everyone can follow via live stats on USAJaguars.com or through Twitter at @SouthAlaMBK. Fans can listen to the game on 710 AM WNTM or online at www.iheart.com/live/newsradio-710-wntm-1.

"I absolutely love this time of year," Graves said. "We get a chance to compete against other opponents after going against ourselves for a while. I'm really excited about this team and ready for whatever challenge Mobile brings."

USA leads the all-time series 3-0. The two schools last met in the regular season in the 2011-12 campaign when the Jags rallied from a 14-point deficit to win 74-63, and have played an exhibition the last two years.

Seven letterwinners from last year's squad will make their return, including three of the top four scorers. All three top scorers are members of the backcourt, who combined for 85 starts last season.

Junior Ken Williams (Houston, Texas) leads the pack with a 15.7 scoring average from last season, good enough for Second Team all-Sun Belt honors after last year and a First Team Preseason all-SBC nod prior to this year. Joining him is senior Barrington Stevens III (Allen, Texas) who has posted back-to-back seasons with an assist/turnover ratio of 2.0, the first time a Jaguar has accomplished that since 1981.

Sophomore Taishaun Johnson (Indianapolis, Ind.) ranked second on the team last year at 12.5 ppg and set school freshman records for free throws made (138) and attempted (177).

"What I'd like to see is for us to run our offense at a very good pace and be really smooth and efficient," Graves said about his backcourt. "By efficient, I'm breaking that down into two areas: do we take care of the basketball and do we take good shots? If we do that, we're going to be successful from that standpoint."

The frontcourt has more questions going into the year with new starters at the two forward spots. Junior Georgi Boyanov (Lovech, Bulgaria) is the most experienced of the group with six starts in 33 appearances and a 6.0 point-per-game average last season.

"I think it's going to be a feel of how the game is going," Graves said about the forwards. "We've told them all along that if you want to play minutes, you have to play well, and that's the bottom line. We've certainly evaluated during practice and right now, there's not a great deal of separation among our '4s' and '5s.' There are minutes up for grabs, and what we tell them is, how can you affect winning? At the end of the day, everything will sort itself out."

Thursday will also be the first contest of the year for Mobile, who return six letterwinners from a season ago – including leading scorer and rebounder Daouda Soumaoro – and have seven newcomers.

"The great thing about playing Mobile and Coach (Joe) Niland is, they're going to come in well-prepared and they're going to compete. It will give us a very good gauge of things we do well and things we need to work on. That's part of playing an exhibition – you want to continue getting better and see different combinations. Mobile is a great opponent because of how well they'll come in and approach the game themselves."

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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