MOBILE, Ala. – The University of South Alabama men's basketball team missed four chances in the final seconds of overtime, and despite double-doubles from juniors Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell, dropped an 88-86 decision to Georgia Southern Saturday afternoon at the Mitchell Center.

Mitchell sent the game into an extra period with jumper from the foul line with 2.6 seconds left. The two teams traded the first eight scores of overtime then GS's Quan Jackson broke an 84-84 tie with a 3-pointer with 58.4 seconds left.

USA (9-10, 2-4 Sun Belt) sophomore John Pettway went 2 for 2 at the free-throw line with 35.8 remaining and GS's David-Lee Jones Jr. split a pair of attempts 1.7 seconds later to put the Eagles (12-7, 4-2) up 88-86.

After a miss from Ajayi with nine seconds left in OT, the Eagles turned the ball over on the rebound, then Pettway came up with the offensive board following a Mitchell miss. Montae Glenn blocked an attempt from Mitchell and a follow from Mitchell went off the rim as the buzzer sounded.

GAME FACTS
- South Alabama used a 9-2 run early to take a 9-4 lead, and after back-to-back layups from Glenn put Georgia Southern up 17-15, the Jaguars went on another 9-2 run and didn't trail again the rest of the half
- A layup from Ajayi early in the second half preceded 10 unanswered points from GS – seven from Tookie Brown – and a 3-point play from Glenn made it a 13-2 rally and a 54-50 Eagle lead
- Ajayi responded with five straight points of his own to retake the lead and neither team led by more than three points over a 10-minute stretch until Glenn went 1 for 2 at the line with 45 seconds left in regulation for a 75-71 lead
- Junior Herb McGee converted an old-fashioned 3-point play with 35.9 left to pull within one, and Isaiah Crawley made a free throw for a two-point lead just before Mitchell sent the game into overtime
- Ajayi finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds, and Mitchell had 22 points and 11 boards
- McGee tied his career high with 18 points and Pettway set a new personal best with 14 and tied his career high with 6 rebounds
- Brown tied Ajayi with 26 points, Glenn recorded a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds, and Jackson tallied 15 points

NOTES
- Ajayi became the 16th member of South Alabama's 1,000-point club, and he moved up to 17th at USA in career rebounds with 523
- South Alabama leads the all-time series 11-6 but it's tied 5-5 since Georgia Southern joined the Sun Belt in 2014
- USA's .581 shooting percentage in the first half is a new season high; the team finished at .514 for the game to fall to 5-2 on the year when shooting 50 percent or better in a game
- The Jags missed on all nine 3-point attempts after halftime and converted 21.1 percent from deep for the contest, their lowest since Nov. 17 against Jacksonville
- South Alabama is 1-1 in overtime games this season and 6-7 in the last five
- Ajayi's double-double was his seventh of the year and Mitchell's was his fifth
- After starting the year 8-0 when a USA player has a double-double, the team has lost its last two
- Ajayi and Mitchell have recorded a double-double in the same game twice this season; it hadn't been accomplished once in the previous four
- Today marked just the third time this season the team leading at halftime did not go on to win the game; USA is 8-2 this season when up at the break
- Brown hit the 20-point mark for the third time against South Alabama and the 26 points ties his personal best against the Jags; he is averaging 19.1 points in eight career games
- Georgia Southern's nine-point rally is the largest by an opponent this year
- Mitchell and McGee played all 45 minutes

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "It was a hard-fought game against a really good team. We didn't make enough plays late to win it. We missed some key box-outs and gave up a strong-side help to make it 84-82. You can't make those plays against a good team or they're going to make you pay. There are no moral victories in our program. We don't have moral victories. We played a good team to overtime and lost by two; it's a loss. It was the same thing Thursday when we played Georgia State tough. They're a good team in our league and we lost. We played five guys in the second half other than Rodrick Sikes one minute. I'm proud of their effort. I thought they gave us everything they had from a physical standpoint. I thought they wanted to win. That's something that we're working on. Winning is important to our team, and that hasn't always been the case throughout the year. I thought today and on Thursday that it was important to those guys and they wanted to win. I'm certainly proud of that. It's a lot of minutes to play in a hard-fought game, but we were forced to do it. We started the game with eight. Sikes rolled his ankle and we went to seven, and we pretty much played with five. That's rare in college basketball, but we did it today."

On long-term lessons from the past two games: "They're starting to see what effort does. The problem is there are 12 regular-season games left. For some of these guys, there are 12 regular-season games left in their careers and then the conference tournament. That's what we're striving for. This is year one for our staff and we're trying to set a precedent of who we are. We're trying to establish our culture and what we're about. I think we're successfully doing that not only for the guys who are playing right now but for the four guys we have sitting out. They see it every day. That's a big reason I love transfers: they see it every day and they're coached the same way as the guys who are playing now. They get to see the league and how tough we're playing guys with a limited roster and limited capabilities of what we can do with this roster. I think it helps our culture to see what hard work does. Those five guys who played today worked extremely hard. They played through fatigue and they really gave us all that they had.

On Trhae Mitchell: He stepped up and made a huge shot, and I know he was tired. I know he's upset he didn't make the last shot, but I told him to think about how much he's grown. He wasn't getting that shot last year, as a freshman, or in high school. Now he's taking two shots. One he hit to tie it and the other one he took to tie it again. We went with him. It's just a testament to him. He's getting better and better and I love it for him. I'm so happy with how much improvement he's making."

On John Pettway and Herb McGee's performances: "I was kind of joking around on the radio and I said I don't know that Pettway played 40 minutes all through conference season last year in all the games. He played 40 minutes today and he played his tail off. I know he's down because of a defensive mistake he made. I like the fact that some of those guys are hurting because we lost. We've come a long way. When we were losing a couple games early in the season it felt like nobody cared. Today, those five guys who played felt it. I could feel it. I'm so proud of Pettway because he came in and really played well. He played with a high level of confidence and he did a lot of things to help us be right there to win the game. McGee was the leader that I wanted him to be today. He played really well not only from a statistical standpoint, but he was trying to communicate with guys and find a way to win. I was as proud of that as I was that he scored 18 points. He was trying everything he could to help us win the game and I appreciate him for that."

UP NEXT
South Alabama takes on Georgia Southern Saturday afternoon at the Mitchell Center. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m.

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