MOBILE, Ala. (2/7/08) ? The Arkansas State men's basketball team (9-14, 4-8) kept its game with Sun Belt Conference East Division co-leader South Alabama (19-4, 11-1) close in the first half, but the Jaguars used a strong second half to pull away from the Indians for an 81-58 victory Thursday night at The Mitchell Center.

Adrian Banks led three ASU players scoring in double figures with 22 points, but USA's Demetric Bennett scored 23 points and Domonic Tilford added 21 points to lead three Jaguars scoring in double figures as well.

ASU quickly scored the first three points to start the second half and trim USA's lead to 39-36, but the Jaguars responded with a 9-0 run to grab a 48-36 advantage at the 16:51 mark.  ASU hit 44 percent of its shots in the first half, but made just three of its first 12 attempts in the second half as USA extended its lead to 22 points, 64-42, over the next six minutes.

“South Alabama has tremendous experience and talent and they are playing very well,” said ASU Head Coach Dickey Nutt.  “We ran into a very tough team tonight and I give them credit.  I was really proud of some of the things we did tonight.  We gave good effort, played hard and had some good performances, but we didn't have the inside play tonight that we needed to be successful.”

Arkansas State hit just 36 percent of its field goal attempts, while USA made 50 percent of it attempts and used high-pressure defense to force 15 ASU turnovers that it turned into 28 points.  USA also held a 40-27 advantage on the boards and recorded 11 steals.

In addition to Banks' 22 points, Yima Chia-Kur scored 14 points and Shawn Morgan 11 for the Indians.  Both Chia-Kur and Morgan finished with double-figure points for the third consecutive game.

Capitalizing on ASU turnovers and four three-point field goals over the first 10 minutes, South Alabama slowly opened up an eight point lead at 24-16.  The Indians battled back to within 33-31 after Morgan hit two free throws with just under five minutes remaining, but the Jaguars went on a 6-2 run to close the first half with a 39-33 advantage.

After hitting four shots from beyond the arc in the game's first six minutes, the Jaguars managed just one more trey in the first half.  However, they scored 18 points off 10 ASU turnovers and grabbed seven more rebounds than the Indians to help build the six-point lead at the break.