No. 8 Jaguar men top Coastal Georgia, remain unbeaten
By Katron Hugee | Sports writer
The Augusta University men's basketball team defeated College of Coastal Georgia 83-56 on Saturday, Dec. 12, at Christenberry Fieldhouse.
This win improves the eighth-ranked Jaguars’ record to 8-0 on the season. The College of Coastal Georgia Mariners fell to 1-3.
Prior to the game, Augusta University took a moment to honor the survivors of prostate cancer and pay tribute to those whose lives have been lost to the disease on Prostate Cancer Awareness Day.
The game started out tight with Coastal Georgia leading 6-4 four minutes in. Then, back-to-back 3-pointers from Troy Cracknell and Miguel Arnold gave AU the lead at 10-6.
This would be the start of a 19-0 run by the Jaguars with them jumping out to a 23-6 lead. This run was in part due to the hot shooting of Arnold, who hit three straight 3-pointers to increase the lead from 14-6 to 23-6.
Arnold finished the game with 25 points, which led the team, three assists and seven made 3s, including six in the first half. After the game, Arnold, who hit six 3-pointers in the Jaguars’ last outing, talked about his hot streak from deep.
“I’m in the gym every day working out,” Arnold said. “My teammates trust me, my coaches trust me, and I know it is going to go in, so I keep shooting the ball and that’s translating into the game.”
The score would be 35-25 AU late in the first half until an 11-0 run by the Jaguars gave them a 46-25 lead at halftime. This run was capped off by a 3-pointer from the corner by John Whitehead III with two seconds left.
The Jaguars came out of halftime looking to put the game away quickly. They increased their lead to 50-25 before immediately going on another 7-0 run to make the score 57-27.
AU would then cruise from there with its lead getting as big as 37 points and the score never getting within 25. The second half would include three big dunks, one being an alley-oop slam from Arnold to Ja’Queze Kirby, another alley-oop slam from Darren Lucas-White to Whitehead III and a breakaway two-handed slam by David Viti.
The Jaguars ended the game shooting 50 percent from the field and 51.6 percent from 3-point range, hitting 16 out of 31 attempts. John Whitehead III was the team’s second-leading scorer with 15 points, Tyshaun Crawford led the team in rebounds with 8, and Tyree Myers led the team in assists with 7.
One of the keys for the Jaguars’ team success this season has been their defense. Augusta University held Coastal Carolina to 41 percent shooting for the game and 33 percent from 3-point range.
“We have this goal that you’ve got to hold them to below 40 percent field goal percentage and if we don’t get below 40 percent we’re going to sprint,” Coach Dip Metress said. “I looked at the stat sheet and it was 41 percent, so we’ll have to run one sprint, but defensively we were really good again.”
The Jaguars’ next game is Monday, Dec. 13, against Paine College at Christenberry Fieldhouse.
Contact Katron Hugee at khugee@augusta.edu.
John Whitehead III (35) takes aim on a 3-pointer; he had 15 points in the win over Coastal Georgia. At the top of the page, Tyshaun Crawford goes up for two. (photos by Viraj Bulla, special to the Bell Ringer)
