MOBILE, Ala. – Senior Rodrick Sikes scored a team-high 21 points and juniors Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell each recorded double-doubles to pace the University of South Alabama men's basketball team to a 79-73 victory over Appalachian State Thursday night at the Mitchell Center.

Ajayi recorded 15 points, 12 rebounds and a career-high eight assists, and Mitchell tallied 16 points and 10 boards, becoming the first Jaguar teammates to have a double-double in the same game since the 2013-14 season.

The Jags got off to a slow start, trailing 25-11 midway through the first half, but finished on an 18-2 run, including the last 14 unanswered, to lead 36-31 at halftime.

South Alabama (8-6, 1-0 Sun Belt) opened up a 14-point lead late then saw it dwindle down to four with 27 seconds left after an 11-3 Appalachian State (5-9, 0-1) rally. The Jags went 2 for 4 at the line and forced two Mountaineer misses to hold on.

GAME FACTS
- Appalachian State made 11 of its first 15 shots of the contest in jumping out to a 14-point lead after 10:17 of game time and got buckets from seven different players
- On the other end of the floor, South Alabama went just 5 for 17, missed all five 3-point attempts and committed four turnovers
- The rest of the half was a different story as the Jaguars went 10 for 15 from the field – 5 for 7 from distance – and held the Mountaineers to 2-for-13 shooting and 0 for 5 from long range
- Mitchell answered almost immediately with a layup after App State took a 25-11 lead, sparking a 25-6 run over the final 9:29 before halftime
- USA started the second half strong and took its first double-digit lead (47-36) with 14:36 left on a Sikes triple
- Appalachian State stayed within striking distance and trailed by just five (60-55) at the 6:53 mark following a layup from Ronshad Shabazz and two free throws from Isaac Johnson
- Sikes and Ajayi combined for 10 of the Jags' next 12 points – part of a 12-3 run – to take a 72-58 lead with 2:33 left
- The Mountaineers responded with a 12-3 run of their own – all from Shabazz and Johnson – to pull within 75-70 with 32 seconds left, then O'Showen Williams hit a trey with 27 seconds left to get to 77-73
- Williams' triple would be App State last of the night at Sikes and junior Herb McGee each hit a free throw to close it out
- Shabazz finished with 21 points and five assists, and Johnson added 14 points and six rebounds

NOTES
- The Jaguars improved to 22-20 all time in Sun Belt openers and have won their last three
- South Alabama improved to 8-1 when outshooting its opponent, and hit the 50-percent mark (51.9%) for the fifth straight game, the program's longest streak since at least 2004-05
- The team's run of shooting 50 percent or better in a half ended at seven after converting 46.9 percent before halftime, but they rebounded to shoot 59.1 percent in the second half, improving their second-half shooting percentage in the last five games to 56.6 percent
- The last pair of Jags to have a double-double in the same game were Augustine Rubit (12 points, 14 rebounds) and Mychal Ammons (20, 11) at Western Kentucky on Feb. 15, 2014
- USA had 21 assists and 18 turnovers, extending its run with a positive assist/turnover ratio to five games, also the longest since at least the start of the 2004-05 season
- The points in the paint (38-38) and points off turnovers (17-17) were even, but the Jags held a 12-0 edge in second-chance points, and the Mountaineers won the fast break points 27-5
- Sikes hit the 20-point mark for the fifth time this season, tops on the team

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "It was a good win for our guys to put that last game behind us. We're not bringing that up tonight. We're never going to bring it up again. I'm going to try to do a better job as the head coach of not dwelling on those. I chase perfection like crazy, and sometimes 21-year-old kids don't do that. I think it bothers them a little bit the more I dwell on their bad moments. We need to move past those. That last game is over. Tonight we did that. We came out and we're 1-0 in the league. It's hard to go 1-0. You've got to win your first one before you can win any of the others. We were able to take care of business against a good team. We had really good moments. From the nine-minute mark of the first half I think we got 15 stops out of 16 possessions, which is incredible. We had moments in the second half where we really defended. When this team defends, we're pretty good. We execute pretty well. I thought tonight we had a lot of cuts, some layups, a lot of open shots—I thought we did a nice job of running our stuff. Twenty-one assists is where we want to be. We want to have 20-plus assists every night. We want to shoot over 50 percent and shoot over 40 from the three. That 56-percent free throw percentage we want to get a little higher, but it was a pretty good overall effort by our team."

On addressing being down by 14 points: "We were really struggling. We were missing some easy shots and had some turnovers that were uncharacteristic of us. Trhae Mitchell had four turnovers in the first half. Defensively, it was a layup show for them. We were just giving up easy baskets. We tried to correct it in each media timeout leading up to that. Obviously that's what the media timeouts are for. We were trying to correct it and we were just in a funk. Sometimes this team gets in a funk and it's my job as the head coach to get them out of it. I was a little different in my approach tonight. In those moments early in the game I didn't scream. I talked to them a little bit differently and I think it helped them tonight, for whatever reason. They came together. There was more talk from them too. I have to give them credit. Our guys don't talk a lot, especially in games. Tonight they did. We had some guys step up and try to lead, and I think that made a huge difference."

On Josh Ajayi's performance: "He's doing a good job of seeing those cuts. They've been there a lot of the year. The way we play, we like to cut you and space you. He has not been as comfortable making those passes. Tonight he was. He made some tremendous passes. We did a nice job of cutting with speed too. It's really good for our flow and pace of offense if we can cut like that, because it leads to so many more things other than just the layups. He had eight assists; I would think that has to be a career high for him. I thought he was tremendous. I took him out early and refocused him a little bit. Outside of that I thought he was really good. I thought he controlled the glass and created great opportunities passing the ball. He started finishing better. He started out 1 of 5 on the game and finished 5 of 10."

UP NEXT
South Alabama closes out its six-game homestand Saturday against Coastal Carolina at 3 p.m.

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