No. 24 Augusta men roll past Peach Belt rival USC Aiken

By Carlos Rodriguez | Co-editor in chief 

Once again, the Augusta University men’s basketball team displayed a strong defensive outing at home as the Jaguars defeated rival USC Aiken 73-52 on Wednesday night, Jan. 26, at Christenberry Fieldhouse. 

The 24th-ranked Jaguars (5-3, 15-3) outscored the Pacers (6-2, 12-6) in both halves and held them to 28.2-percent shooting from the field. 

The Augusta-Aiken rivalry always brings out crowds rooting for both sides in hopes of bragging rights with both teams being in close proximity. The Pacers had their own student section appear to the game that went back and forth with the Augusta crowd.  

AU’s Troy Cracknell has been apart of the rivalry for the past five years and spoke about the meaning of their matchups. 

“Whenever we play Aiken it’s always an exciting game, especially when both teams are good,” said Cracknell. “It felt great to get the win especially since they’re our rival and they were tied for first in the conference.” 

Ja’Queze Kirby led the team with 16 loud points filled with several highlight dunks to go along with six rebounds and three blocks. 

Cracknell had 13 points and seven rebounds. Tyshaun Crawford flirted with a triple-double, scoring 12 points, grabbing 10 boards and swatting six shots. Crawford is second in the PBC in total blocks and sixth in the nation. 

“There’s a lot of positives to him (Crawford),” said AU Coach Dip Metress. “He’s engaged defensively. You’ve got to shoot over the top of him and it’s hard to do.” 

Tehree Horn, the reigning PBC player of the week, led Aiken with 17 points. 

The first half started with a pair of layups by Aiken’s Jalen McCoy. McCoy gave the Pacers a 9-2 lead after knocking down a jumper with 17:03 remaining.  

“They were good early and we were bad early,” said Metress. "Some of the things we did offensively led to stuff down there for them.” 

AU took their first lead of the game after a 3-pointer by David Viti to go up 19-17. The Jags never looked back after taking the lead as Viti’s bucket propelled them to a 14-0 run. 

Cracknell gave Augusta a double-digit lead after knocking down a 3-pointer to go up 27-17 with 8:41 remaining. 

At the 7:43 mark Kirby was sent to the free throw line. He knocked down the first one but missed the second one and grabbed his own rebound to go back up for two points and give the Jags a 30-17 lead. 

The Pacers then went on a 9-0 run, which was started and ended by David Strother who made a jumper then knocked down two free throws at the end of the run to cut the lead to 30-26 with 2:22 remaining.  

Before the half ended, Timmy Sellers and Kirby combined for a beautiful sequence. Kirby went up for a layup which came off the glass and Sellers picked it up and slammed it down. Horn sprinted down the court and made his way to the rim, only to be met by the high-flying Kirby who swatted his shot into the Augusta bench.  

“It was a great sequence,” said Metress. “I told Kirby to just drive it and he drove it trying to look for a foul and Timmy made a great play which led to another great defensive play and that was an important sequence to close out the half because they had cut that lead.” 

At the half AU led 35-26. The Jags held USC Aiken to only one 3-point make on 8.3-percent. 

In the second half the Jaguars picked up right where they left off increasing their lead early on. At the 17:48 mark after crossing halfcourt, Tyree Myers threw an alley-oop pass to Kirby who slammed it home.  

“I usually can see when Tyree is throwing it, I had no idea he was throwing that to Kirby,” said Metress. “It was a hell of a pass.  

Horn cut AU’s lead to 51-41 after making a fastbreak layup with 10:17 left.  

Ten was as little as the Jaguars lead would get as they kept building on from that. Their biggest lead of the game was a 23-point lead after Darren Lucas-White threw a lob to Kirby, who again slammed it home to go up 70-47 with 3:39 remaining.  

Augusta closed out the game and sent the Pacers back down I-20 with a 73-52 loss. The Jags shot 51.9-percent from the field. 

Prior to this game, the Jags suffered a 79-66 road loss to Flagler on Jan. 21. Despite the double-digit loss, Metress was pleased with his team’s effort. 

“I called a timeout down there with 30 seconds to go and I got our team together and said, ‘Listen we’re in good shape,’” said Metress. “In order to win the league, you got to win your home games and get five on the road and we’ve got zero on the road right now, but we’ve got six opportunities coming up here.” 

Augusta, currently in fourth place in the PBC, hosts Clayton State on Saturday, Jan. 28, at 3:30 p.m. before starting a two-game road trip.  

“We want to win a regular-season title,” Metress said. “That’s our goal. Of our three road loses in the league we did not play well in two of them. Flagler we played hard enough we just didn’t have enough guys that game but if we play with the effort we did at Flagler, we’re going to win at a lot of places if we have our whole team.” 

Contact Carlos Rodriguez at carrodriguez@augusta.edu.

AU’s Tyree Myers (2) sets up the offense as USC Aiken’s Preston Parks defense. At the top of the page, Ja’Queze Kirby (13) takes the ball to the basket against the Pacers’ Latreavin Black; Kirby led the Jaguars with 16 points. (photos by Carlos Rodriguez)