MOBILE, Ala. – North Alabama came back from a 16-point deficit in the second half and ended the contest on an 8-1 run in an 82-80 victory over the University of South Alabama men's basketball team in an exhibition game Friday night at the Mitchell Center.

USA junior Rodrick Sikes came off the bench to score a game-high 25 points on five 3-pointers, and sophomore Josh Ajayi added 17 points and nine rebounds.

North Alabama's Kendall Stafford recorded 18 points to lead the Lions, and Tavares Tolliver tallied 16 in a reserve role.

GAME FACTS
- South Alabama opened up an eight-point lead in the first three minutes of the second half, and stretched it to a 16-point margin with 12:14 to play after a dunk from Kevin Morris
- The Jags still held led by double-digits as late as the 7:52 mark but a 10-4 run from the Lions cut their deficit to 71-67 with 5:37 to play
- Following back-to-back buckets from Ajayi and sophomore Herb McGee, USA went up 77-69 with 1:51 to go, but a triple from Stafford and a layup from Trenton Clayton on consecutive trips down the floor made it a 77-74 game with a minute left
- A layup from McGee with 42.1 seconds on the clock stretched the Jaguars' lead back up to 79-74, but that would be their last field goal of the contest
- Kendarius Smith answered on the other end with 29.0 seconds left on a corner 3-pointer; Sikes could only make 1 of 2 at the free-throw line at the other end, and Clayton went 2 for 2 at the stripe to trail 80-79 with 15.0 left
- South Alabama followed by missing both free-throw attempts and giving North Alabama the ball with 12.8 on the clock
- Tolliver hit the game-winning layup with 3.5 seconds remaining and two last-ditch efforts by the Jaguars came up short

NOTES
- South Alabama shot 46.6 percent from the floor, but only 27.3 percent from 3-point land and 66.7 percent from the charity stripe
- Dederick Lee played just 14 minutes, but dished out a game-high-tying four assists with no turnovers, and added two steals
- Sikes shot 7 for 15 from the field, 5 for 8 from distance and 6 for 7 from the line
- While Sikes hit 5 of his 8 long-range attempts, the rest of the team combined to go 1 for 14
- Sophomore Trhae Mitchell had three assists and three blocks, and Morris rejected a pair of shots
- The Jaguars recorded 10 steals and scored 25 points off turnovers

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Matthew Graves
Opening statement: "Congratulations to North Alabama. They came in, and for 40 minutes they were the better team. I thought it was a good basketball game with a lot of good runs, and up and downs. The one thing that we need to take away from this is, when we're up 16 with 12 minutes to go, we've really got to put this team away; we didn't. A lot of it is certainly my fault with the certain combinations we were trying to get in, but that's part of playing in an exhibition game. We want to see different guys play and see how they perform before we hit the regular season. If you look at our minutes, I think we accomplished that. We played a lot of different guys. At the end of the day, you come in here and play the game to win, and unfortunately, we didn't get the job done tonight."

On what led to the comeback: "We had a couple lineups in there when we were up by 12 to 16 when we took three straight 3's. We need to go back and show our team in film that we need to slow down a little bit, work some clock, get the best shot we can at that time. I thought late-game defensively, they did a tremendous job of driving the ball, getting into the paint, and we either fouled or they were able to kick to a wide open '3' because we had to help. We've got to go back to doing a much better job of keeping the ball out of the paint because if we don't, it's going to be a long year. They're an extremely skilled team from the 3-point line, and once they went small, it was really hard for us to match up."

On what can be learned from the loss: "Teams lose in exhibitions, and that's part of it, but at the same time, I don't want to undersell the effort that North Alabama put in. We were certainly playing the game to win. We were just trying to get different combinations in there to do that, and that's part of the exhibition. I think we did get better from this experience, and we will get better from this experience. At the end of the day, some of these exhibitions where you win by 30, 40, 50 points, maybe you don't learn as much about your team. I think we learned a great deal about our team. I'm still very excited about this group. It's a young group that's going to continue to get better each and every day, and I think you're going to see a lot of growth from this team throughout the season, and I'm excited about it."

On Sikes' performance: "I think he's going to be able to give us a scoring punch that we need off the bench right now. Certainly, roles can change throughout the year, but he's really good at finding his spots. He runs in transition very well, and he's got a very quick release. The other thing that he does, and you look at the stats, he's not just a 3-point shooter. He gets to the free-throw line, he gets fouled, and he's able to convert at the free-throw line. The more our guys get used to playing with each other, we're going to get better."

UP NEXT
The Jaguars will officially open the season Nov. 10 at Texas Tech at 8 p.m.

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).

Join the Jaguar Athletic Fund (JAF) Priority Fund, the unrestricted giving option of the University of South Alabama Athletics. Contributions to the Priority Fund directly support all 17 sports in addition to various support programming. For more information on how you can join visit: http://jaguarathleticfund.com/give

—USA—