AUBURN, Ala. – No. 11/12 Auburn jumped out to a 13-point lead in the first four minutes and went on to defeat the University of South Alabama men's basketball team 101-58 Tuesday night at Auburn Arena.

The game was the season opener for both teams. It was the first meeting between the in-state schools since 2006.

AU made 10 of its first 12 attempts from behind the 3-point line and shot 68.4 percent from the floor in the first 13-plus minutes of the contest to take a 38-11 lead.

South Alabama cut the deficit to 15 late in the first half but a 21-8 run by Auburn to start the second half put the game away.

GAME FACTS
- After an alley-oop by Anfernee McLemore to start the scoring, Auburn's next five field goals were all 3-pointers, with two each coming from Bryce Brown and Jared Harper to take a 17-4 lead
- Following a free throw from junior Trhae Mitchell and a bucket from junior Kevin Morris, the Tigers reeled off the next 15 points, 11 from Chuma Okeke on three consecutive 3-pointers
- Senior Rodrick Sikes stopped the run with a triple, then took over a minute and a half later, scoring 14 straight points for the Jaguars to spark a 19-7 run and cut the margin down to 45-30 with two minutes left in the half
- Auburn answered with seven unanswered points, and a trey from Sikes in the final seconds made it a 52-33 contest at the break
- After an even first three minutes of the second half, 12 consecutive points from the Tigers – six on back-to-back treys from Harper – gave them a 32-point lead, their biggest of the contest
- A layup from junior Josh Ajayi at the 12:35 mark would be the Jags' last field goal for over 11 ½ minutes thanks to 11 consecutive misses
- Six Tigers hit double-digit points, led by 20 each from Okeke and Harper
- Harper added 13 assists against just one turnover and went 6 for 10 from 3-point land
- Sikes led all scorers with 25 points, going 8 for 18 from the floor and 5 for 12 from distance

NOTES
- South Alabama is 6-40 all-time against ranked opponents
- The last USA opponent to score 100 points was ULM (100) on Jan. 23, 2016 and the last opponent to score 101 or more was Louisiana (102) on March 2, 2014
- Sikes has scored 20 points or more in a game 12 times in 33 career games
- Auburn won the battle of the boards 42-27
- The Tigers outscored the Jaguars in the paint (40-18), off turnovers (33-5), on second-chance points (26-7) and on fast-break points (15-2)
- AU now leads the series between the two schools 6-4 and has won three in a row over USA for the first time
- Mitchell shared game-high honors with three blocks
- Morris and junior Herb McGee grabbed a team-best five rebounds each

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "They have a really good team. Their ranking is legit. They should be rated there or better. When they get (Austin) Wiley back, (Samir) Doughty gets some more reps and (Danjel) Purifoy gets back after eight games, they'll be good. I've said all week that Bruce Pearl is one of the best coaches in the country and arguably one of the best program builders in the country. He's built a program down here that's going to sustain success and get better and better. I think you saw that tonight. I'm disappointed in my crew; we didn't handle it very well. We didn't handle the environment very well, we didn't handle it when things went bad. We talked about being resilient when they threw some punches and they threw punches early and landed some. We fought back at the end of the first half and cut it to 18 at the break. We talked at halftime about they're wanting to stretch it to 30 or 40 and we're talking about getting it down to 10 and make it manageable. They were ready to do that and we weren't. It's very disappointing."

On Auburn's 3-pointers: "They hit some off the bounce. Jared hit some off the bounce and he does that. Bryce Brown, who we were trying to not leave at all, got free a couple of times and made some. They have five guys that can shoot it. When you're at home, you shoot it really well, and there's a reason they led the SEC in scoring last year. We did not offer up enough pressure on them to make them uncomfortable. They felt comfortable for 40 minutes and it showed. We didn't do nearly a good enough job defensively."

On Sikes: "We need him to do that earlier. He was really good at getting us back. He made some shots in the run we had late in the first half, but we needed some of those early. When we got down 14-4 before they built their lead to 20, we needed some to keep the game at bay a little bit. I was proud of how he fought. Rodrick was one of the few guys that continued to compete throughout the game and tried hard to keep us in it."

UP NEXT
South Alabama commences its home schedule Sunday against Huntingdon at 4 p.m.

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

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

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