AU moves up to second place in the PBC with win over Georgia College

By Carlos Rodriguez | Co-editor in chief

The 23rd-ranked Augusta University men’s basketball team defeated Georgia College on the road 77-55 on Saturday, Feb. 5.

Prior to the game, the Bobcats were in second place in the Peach Belt Conference standings, sitting a half-game ahead of the Jaguars. 

With the win AU (18-3 overall) leaped a spot up and sit in a two-way tie with USC Aiken at 8-3, but the Jags currently have the tiebreaker advantage.

“It was a huge win for us as we beat one of the top teams in the conference on the road,” said AU assistant coach Zach Tinkham. “It also gives us a head to head tiebreaker on the year since we beat them at home earlier in the year as well.”

Tyshaun Crawford led AU with 19 points, scoring 17 of them in the first half. Darren Lucas-White added 13 points and six rebounds, while Ja’Queze Kirby had 10 points and nine rebounds

“Tyshaun had a fantastic game; he was patient and took what the defense gave him,” Tinkham said. “He has great touch around the rim and he is very confident in his free throw shooting now. He played a great game and plays with a lot of fire.”

Leading the Bobcats (8-4, 16-5) was Jordan Thomas with 16 points and Luke Chism with 13. 

The Bobcats started the game off with five-straight points after a 3-pointer by Wesley Simpson and layup by Chism.

Augusta went on a 9-0 run, all scored by Crawford. He scored the team’s first 11 points as the Jaguars went up 11-7 with 15:17 left.

A little over four minutes later Timmy Sellers threw down a dunk to give the Jags their first double-digit lead of the game at 22-11.

A 3-pointer by Lucas-White increase their lead to 21 as AU went up 40-19 with 3:42 left. David Viti gave the Jaguars their biggest lead of the half after knocking down two free throws to go up 45-22 with 1:11 remaining.

In the final minute Georgia College knocked down two free throws to go into the half down 45-24. 

The key to the big first half by the Jags was defense and being aggressive attacking the rim. AU made 17 free throws in the half. They held Georgia College to only eight field goal makes, only converting on 29.6-percent of their shots.

“The whole key to the game was defense,” said Tinkham. “Everything starts with our defense. They shoot a lot of threes, so we wanted to chase guys off the line and that’s what we did. We also had zero turnovers in the first half which made them earn every point they got. It was a great win for us.”

The second half was better offensively for the Bobcats but still not good enough to make up for the big deficit. The Jags continued to apply the pressure and take advantage of opportunities and narrowly outscored the Bobcats 32-31 in the half.

Despite coming out of the locker room right when the buzzer went off for the half to start and not getting a chance to warmup, the Bobcats came out stronger than the way they ended the previous half.

Still, they could only trim AU’s lead to as little as 17 points, which came after Christian Koneman made two free throws at the 14:41 mark as they trailed 53-36.

Later in the half, on back-to-back possessions, Miguel Arnold knocked down two unanswered 3-pointers that gave the Jags a 70-42 lead with 5:23 remaining.

Viti gave AU a 31-point lead, their biggest lead of the game, after knocking down a 3-pointer to go up 75-44 with 2:42 remaining.

The Bobcats were able to get some more offense going in the final two minutes, but it was too late to make something out of it as the Jags left Centennial Center with a 22-point win.

Overall AU shot 44.4-percent from the field, compared to Georgia College shooting 33.3-percent. A big performance at the free throw line is what separated this game for the Jags. They made a total of 22 shots from the line on 30 attempts. The Bobcats made nine of their 15 attempts.

Up next the Jaguars travel to Georgia Southwestern on Monday, Feb. 7, to square off with the Hurricanes (5-7, 9-11) at 7:30 p.m. 

 Contact Carlos Rodriguez at carrodriguez@augusta.edu.