Eagles take down Jaguars with ease as they grab another conference win

Kaitlin Sells

The Georgia Southern men’s basketball team walked away Wednesday night with a 10-point conference win as they bested the University of South Alabama 75-65.

Besides the first few points scored by the Jaguars, the Eagles held a steady lead over USA for the majority of the game. USA only looked to be dangerous in the beginning of the second half as they came out with fire and went on a 12-point run over GS, but the Eagles held their own and pulled out the win.

“In the first half I thought we were tremendous,” Head Coach Mark Byington said. “Our defense was very good, we were locked in… We came out in the second half and we played out of character for about four to five minutes. I was really happy we were able to settle back into the game.”

Senior guard Tookie Brown and freshman guard Calvin Wishart both led the Eagles in points for the night, scoring 14 each. Of those 14 points scored Wishart sank four three-pointers, showing his three-point percentage to be 50 for the night. The freshman was also 2-2 on free throws and led the team with seven rebounds.

{{tncms-inline account=”amanda sade’” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What a great night for Calvin Wishart! He is dominating the paint as GS looks to close out this game leading 66-62 with three minutes left in regulation. Tookie Brown has scored GS last six points. <a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeAnneSport?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GeorgeAnneSport</a></p>— amanda sade’ (@amandasade99) <a href="https://twitter.com/amandasade99/status/1095858958286376962?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/amandasade99/status/1095858958286376962″ type=”twitter”}}

During the second half of the game Brown got knocked in the mouth by a Jaguar and responded by going on a six-point run over USA, showing that he would not be knocked down easily.

“He played mad the second half,” redshirt-sophomore Quan Jackson said. “He did what Tookie do.”

Brown also managed to snag two steals as well as notching eight assists in the 39 minutes he played.

As a team the Eagles shot 55.8 percent from the floor as well as 46.7 percent on three-pointers. Defensively GS tallied 30 total rebounds while USA only found 24.

This win puts the Eagles now at a conference record of 7-5, placing them at fourth in the Sun Belt. With only six regular season conference games left, the pressure is on to win out to move up and win the league.

“We just need to play our game, play to our full potential, and we can win this league,” Wishart said. “As long as we stay focused on what we need to do and focused on ourselves we should be fine.”

The Eagles are back in action Friday night in Hanner as they take on Troy at 9 p.m.

Amanda Arnold contributed quotes to this article.

Kaitlin Sells, The George-Anne Sports Editor, gasports@georgiasouthern.edu