Basketball Team Beats Spring Hill in Home Opener

Tim Williams was among four Jag players to score in double figures as USA’s men’s basketball team opened the home portion of the 2009 season, defeating cross-town rival Spring Hill 82-53 Thursday night at the Mitchell Center.

Williams nabbed his first double-double of the season going 5-for-8 from the floor with 11 rebounds.

Martino Brock, Bryan Sherrer, and Gary Redus joined Williams with double figures, while Brock led all Jags in scoring (16).

Marcus Coleman led the Badgers, hitting 6-of-15, including five 3-pointers to lead all scorers with 17.

“I feel that we hit all of our goals,” head coach Ronnie Arrow said.

“Going into the game, we knew that they were going to be very patient, and we challenged our guys to hold them to 56 points, and we held them to 53. We also held them defensively, and a lot of times when you play defense, it rewards you on offense,” Arrow said.

The Jags closed out the first half on a 26-12 run that lasted throughout the final six minutes to pull South out to a 43-29 lead going into the break.

The run included a five-minute stretch in which the Badgers were held scoreless and USA scored 20 consecutive points. The stretch was fueled by USA’s small lineup, which featured Brock, Sherrer, Williams, Raymond Sims, and Philip Tabet. That lineup combined for 20 points, eight rebounds, and three strips during the pull-away run.

“I think that group did a good job of doing what we do,” Arrow said. “We need to rebound better, and we have two guys in Javier (Carter) and DeAndre (Hersey) that give us an element that we’ve always had. Javier has so much ability to block shots and rebound and the Tabets need to give us that consistency in the air with rebounds and defense. And once we get all of that going, I think we will be exactly where we need to be.”

South Alabama’s first-half shooting woes continued in the early part of the frame, as the Jags were forced to come back from a 13-8 deficit after starting the contest shooting 1-for-7.

Arrow made defensive adjustments and his team responded by getting stops and shooting 12-of-16 the rest of the half to take a 39-23 halftime lead.

“I think that we learned something about ourselves early in the half,” Arrow said. “We’ve been working on slowing teams down in the half court and pressing, and we just took it all off and locked it up in half court, and that’s going to have to be our bread-and-butter this season.”

USA 62, Tulsa 84

Tulsa broke a 23-23 tie with 6:11 left in the first half and used a 12-0 run to defeat South Alabama 84-62 on Saturday afternoon at the Reynolds Center in Tulsa, Okla. Tulsa led 42-29 at halftime and scored 20 first-half points from behind the free throw line.

The Golden Hurricanes pulled down 53 rebounds and drew 29 fouls over the smaller Jaguar lineup, leading to 24 second-chance points. The Hurricanes also nailed 38 of 50 free throws, building to over half of their total points scored.

The Jags were aggressive on the defensive side of the court, limiting Tulsa to 38.9 percent shooting from the field. The charity shots were the difference, as Tulsa shot 80 percent while USA hit only 53 percent from behind the line. South Alabama shot just 37.1 percent from the field, including a 17 point performance by junior Tim Williams. Gary Redus added 11 in the loss.