STATESBORO, Ga. – Down 17 in the early moments of the second half, the University of South Alabama men's basketball team got as close as four but could not overcome Georgia Southern in a 75-65 loss Wednesday night at Hanner Fieldhouse.

After the Eagles hit their first bucket after halftime, the Jaguars responded with 12 unanswered points. GS stretched its lead out to nine but never got it to double-digits again until the final seconds.

Two free throws from junior Josh Ajayi with 9:26 left cut the margin down to four (60-56) for the second of five times in the second half. The Eagles answered each time, with Tookie Brown accounting for three of those.

A dunk from junior Trhae Mitchell made it a 66-62 game with 6:06 to play, but the Jags missed their next five shots over a six-minute span and the Eagles went 6 for 6 at the line in the final 20 seconds.

GAME FACTS
- After South Alabama scored the first five points of the contest, Georgia Southern poured in eight straight and went on a 16-3 run
- Eight more unanswered points from the Eagles gave them their largest lead of the contest, 33-16, at the 5:20 mark
- Isaiah Crawley scored nine seconds into the second half for GS, then after an offensive rebound, sophomore R.J. Kelly made a layup to start USA's 12-0 rally and make it a 44-39 game
- The Eagles converted on back-to-back possessions to get their lead back up to nine, then the Jags scored seven of the next nine points, capped off with a 3-point play from junior Herb McGee to get within 50-46 with 13:57 to play
- Ajayi, Kelly and Mitchell all trimmed the margin to four on four different occasions, with Mitchell's coming with 6:06 left in the contest
- Neither team scored for almost four minutes after Mitchell's dunk until Quan Jackson hit a jumper with 2:19 left to go back up six
- Brown went 1 for 2 at the line with 1:13 remaining for a 69-63 lead, but the Jaguars turned the ball over on their next possession; following an Eagle turnover, a 3-pointer from Sikes was off the mark and Georgia Southern made their final six free-throw attempts
- McGee led all scorers with 18 points on three 3-pointers; Ajayi poured in 13 and Mitchell added 11
- Brown and Calvin Wishart tallied 14 points each for Georgia Southern

NOTES
- Tonight was just the second Sun Belt game against Georgia Southern decided by double-digits
- The Eagles lead the series 6-5 since they joined the league in 2014-15
- Ajayi has scored 10 points or more in 20 consecutive games
- Brown's 14 points are his second-fewest vs. South Alabama in nine career games; he was averaging 19.1 points against the Jags in his career, including 26 on Jan. 19 in Mobile
- Mitchell snapped a two-game single-digit scoring streak and led the team with 7 rebounds and 4 assists
- Senior Rodrick Sikes scored 50 points in his first two games vs. GS but has totaled just four in his last two
- McGee has hit double-digit points six times in his last seven games and is averaging 14.3 points over that span

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "Like I always say, with our depth and who we are as a team, our margin of error is so small. It gets smaller when you play a really good team on the road like Georgia Southern. We didn't put ourselves in the best position to win. Anytime you dig a hole down 15 at the break and put yourself in foul trouble by not being alert defensively, you're not going to win many games like that. We have a team where we have to play our absolute best for as close to 40 minutes as possible or we're not going to have a chance to win. We didn't do that so we didn't win the game. We're running out of opportunities and we have to find a way to do that, especially on the road because we have a lot of road games down the stretch."

On turning the tide early in the second half: "We came out with a good plan, I thought, so there weren't any adjustments to what they did – we knew what they were doing and had a good plan – we just weren't executing it very well. I got after our guys at halftime. We came out with a little more motivation and played better. There were so many of those key moments where we couldn't make the play, whether it was a wide-open shot to cut it to one, or a rebound when it was a three-point game. It's disappointing because it's been a reoccurring thing for our team this season. We've been right there in a lot of games and we couldn't make the play to get over the hump tonight."

On not being able to score late: "We got a couple of good looks and we didn't make them, especially 3s out of timeouts. We had a couple of costly turnovers too when we were driving and lost the ball. They did a good job of ramping up their intensity defensively. When you get in that final three or four minutes, it's winning time. They have a team that's won a lot of ball games. It's winning time on their home court and they did a good job guarding us. That got stops when they had to. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that."

UP NEXT
South Alabama goes to Georgia State Friday night for a 6 p.m. CST start.

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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