MOBILE, Ala. – Appalachian State scored the first seven points of the second half – part of a 16-5 run – to key an 81-71 defeat of the University of South Alabama men's basketball team Thursday night in the Mitchell Center.

Justin Forrest scored a game-high 32 points for the Mountaineers (7-4, 1-0 Sun Belt) and got a double-double from Isaac Johnson with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Forrest scored 21 points in the second half alone and scored five of the team's seven points in the final minute.

App State opened the half 6 for 6 from the floor, including 2 for 2 from behind the arc, and got nine points from Forrest alone in the first 4:07 to take a 53-44 lead. USA (6-5, 0-1) got as close as three at the 11:34 mark, and trailed by four with 7:13 to play, but the Mountaineers answered with an 8-2 run and led by no fewer than seven the rest of the way.

Senior Andre Fox paced the Jaguars with 24 points on a career-high-tying six 3-pointers. Seniors Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell added 16 and 12 points, respectively.

GAME FACTS
- South Alabama led for over 15 minutes in the first half and got 18 points and four treys from Fox
- Fox nailed a trey with seven seconds left in the half to go up four, but a Kendall Lewis putback at the buzzer made it a 39-37 score at the break
- The Mountaineers got buckets from three different players in the first 1:28 of the second half to take a 44-39 lead, and back-to-back baskets from Forrest pushed their advantage to 53-44
- Ajayi took over for the Jags coming out of halftime, scoring nine of the team's first 15 points, and an old-fashioned 3-point play trimmed the deficit to 57-54 with 11:34 to go
- A bucket from Mitchell with 7:13 on the clock pulled the Jaguars within 64-60, but Forrest and Johnson combined for every point in an 8-2 run to give App State its biggest lead of the night, 72-62 with 1:16 on the clock
- Freshman Tyreke Locure and Fox combined for three 3-pointers in the final 1:09, but it wasn't enough as the Mountaineers answered each time, including a 3-point play from Forrest with 28.2 left for an 11-point lead

NOTES
- The Mountaineers snapped a seven-game losing streak in the series and won for the first time in Mobile (1-5)
- Appalachian State shot 57.1% from the floor in the second half and 54.4% for the game; the Jags are 0-3 when allowing an opponent to shot 50% or better
- Ajayi grabbed a team-high seven rebounds to give him 702 in his career, fifth-most in school history
- Fox hit double-digit points in the first half for the first time since Auburn on Nov. 12; he is averaging 6.4 points in the first half and 9.9 in the second
- The 18 first-half points tie the most by a Jaguar this season; Ajayi had 18 on Tuesday vs. Alabama A&M
- USA is 0-4 when Fox scores 20 points or more
- Appalachian State totaled 52 points in the paint, the most by a Jaguar opponent this season
- The Jaguars converted 12 times from 3-point land, their second-highest total of the year, and most since putting up 13 vs. Spring Hill on Nov. 19; the team had 11 total in its previous two outings
- App State won the rebounding battle 34-28
- USA is 22-21 all-time in Sun Belt openers, and falls to 9-16 in the last 25 years
- Ajayi has scored at least 15 in six career games vs. App State, averaging 20.5 points and 8.8 rebounds in that span
- Graduate Chad Lott was held to six points, snapping a five-game double-digit streak where he averaged 16.2 points and shot 64.0% from the floor

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "This was a disappointing performance. I'm disappointed, I'm sure our fans are disappointed, you guys [the media] are disappointed. We came out and we weren't emotional, we had low energy, we weren't competitive. As the head coach, it's on me; it's my program. I'll be honest, this has been like this consistently since I've been here; some nights we come out ready to go and some nights we don't, and that's on me. I've got to find a better way of getting through to them. We've got older guys [on our team], guys who have been here five years and play a lot of minutes and they haven't consistently performed. It's my job to consistently get energy and emotion out of these guys. We didn't have that tonight. We had looks on our face like we really didn't want to play, we got beat to every loose ball, we got out-toughed. Credit to them [Appalachian State], they came in here and played harder than we did and with more emotion than we did and out-toughed us for 40 minutes. It wasn't just in the second half."

On what Appalachian State did defending the post: "They kept [their defense] in there tight and played a pack-line [type of defense], which forces you to make some shots. When we were able to get the ball inside the paint, we couldn't score; we missed a lot of shots in tight, especially down the stretch where we had a couple of opportunities to get back in it. When we were down six, we got some stops, but missed a wide-open '3' and two point-blank looks at the rim. App State does a good job of playing that type of defense as they only give up 60 points per game. They can really guard and you have to make some shots and be tough with the ball and willing to spray it and make good decisions.

"We're not a real good [basketball] IQ team right now; we don't make real good decisions sometimes, and tonight we didn't play hard enough to make up for it and made no tough plays, which is a tough combination to overcome. When you aren't playing with a lot of emotion and energy, it's hard to win games especially when its someone in your league that's a good team."

On if the mistakes can be fixed: "A lot of it can be fixed and a lot of it is your mentality. How much do you love to play? How much do you love to compete? How dialed in are you? How focused can you be? Again, as head coach, I take 100 percent responsibility that those are things I have to get our guys better being at. But it's an on-going problem for our team and it's been an on-going problem for a long time. I have to find a way to get these guys to consistently give energy and effort, and have an excitement level about playing basketball for 40 minutes.

"If we can do that, then we have a chance to win any game on our schedule; the rest of the 19 league games and the game against Mobile after Christmas. If we don't, we can lose any of them so it's certainly correctable. It's more a mentality thing rather than schematically. It's a mentality of wanting to be out there, a mentality of wanting to play, loving to compete and having an excitement to play the game of basketball. I think our plan was fine [tonight]. We worked really hard to prepare, but when you aren't passionate about something and you don't give every ounce of energy, you aren't going to be good at it. Tonight, we didn't do that and I've got to find a way to get us to do that."

UP NEXT
The Jaguars play their final pre-Christmas contest Saturday afternoon against Coastal Carolina at 3 p.m. in the Mitchell Center.

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).

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