Box Score

STATESBORO, Ga. – Georgia Southern's Tookie Brown scored 18 points and had eight rebounds and assists apiece to lead the Eagles to an 81-74 win over the University of South Alabama men's basketball team.

GS (19-11, 10-7 SBC) never trailed in the second half and took a 63-54 lead with 6:39 to play after a 3-pointer from Brown and a jumper from Mike Hughes. USA (14-16, 7-10 SBC) answered with a 10-2 run, with six points coming from sophomore Herb McGee, to pull within 65-64 with 4:14 to play.

The Eagles scored nine of the next 12 points in a three-minute span to put the game away. Ike Smith and Brown combined for seven of those points as the team shot 3 for 4 from the field.

USA junior Rodrick Sikes led all scorers with 23 points, and McGee added 14. Hughes had 19, and Montae Glenn recorded a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

GAME FACTS
- Neither team led by more than five until the late stages of the first half when Georgia Southern scored seven unanswered to break a 30-30 tie; Sikes scored four straight – all from the free-throw line – to end the half and send GS into the locker room with a 37-34 lead
- The Eagles never trailed in the second half; South Alabama cut the margin down to one on three occsasions early in the second period, and was down two twice before the midway point
- GS outscored USA 12-5 in a four-minute span to stretch its lead out to nine, but the Jaguars countered with the 10-2 rally get within one
- Senior Nick Davis and sophomore Trhae Mitchell grabbed eight rebounds apiece, and Mitchell dished out five assists to go along with two blocks and assists apiece

NOTES
- Sikes recorded his 11th 20-point game of the season, the most by a USA player since Augustine Rubit had 15 in 2012-13; the team is 6-5 when Sikes scores 20 or more
- Sikes moved up to 11th at South Alabama in single-season scoring with 561 points, one shy of Michael Gerren in 10th
- Sikes is seventh in school history in single-season 3-pointers with 84, one away from Mario Jointer
- South Alabama did not have an offensive rebound in the first half, but finished with nine for the game
- Eight of the last nine games in the series have been decided by single digits
- The Jaguars' current four-game losing streak is its longest of the season
- Georgia Southern is the first school to convert better than 30 percent from 3-point land (.353) since Troy shot 30.3 percent on Feb. 3; South Alabama entered the game fourth in the nation in 3-point defense (.296)

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Matthew Graves
Opening statement: "I thought it was a really good basketball game. Both teams competed, played hard and drove the ball to the paint. We got to the free-throw line, but unfortunately, the difference in the game was on the offensive glass. They were able to get six or seven more than we did, which resulted in extra points for them. That's hard to overcome when you're giving up that many. We have to do a better job in that area."

On not being able to get over the hump: "Our defense did a good job of keeping us in the game. Our one-shot defense was really good. We were able to get out in transition and score, but as the game wore on, when you put them on the free-throw line, it's hard to get out on transition. Tonight, we got a little stagnant at times in the offensive half-court. I thought our guys competed and played hard on the road, but when you go out on the road, you have to play a little bit better."

On not being able to keep them off the offensive glass: "When you defend for 20-25 seconds, they miss a shot and get the rebound back, it can be demoralizing. They had a couple of big plays. We forced them to miss, but we didn't block out and they got the rebound and were able to run another 20-25 seconds off the clock. Those came back to haunt us."

On the young players: "I was really proud of our two freshmen, John Pettway and Joe Thompson, and our sophomore Kevin Morris. I thought those guys really grew up tonight. They made mistakes defensively, but they played hard, they competed, and they gave us some good production from the bench in the scoring department."

UP NEXT
South Alabama concludes the regular season on Saturday at 1:15 p.m. CST against Georgia State.

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 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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