Augusta defeated Emmanuel 83-74 on the home floor of the Jaguars to advance to Sunday’s NCAA Tournament second round against USC Aiken. The long time rivals will meet at 7:30 p.m. at Augusta University’s Christenberry Fieldhouse.
The Jaguars were led to victory by 7’1” senior center Tyshaun Crawford, who scored 29 points and made 13 of 19 free throw attempts. Sophomore Ja’Queze Kirby added 20 points, including four made three pointers on six attempts. And senior Miguel Arnold contributed 12 points on 4 of 8 three point shooting.
But the leading scorers weren’t the players nineteen-year head coach Dip Metress brought to the NCAA hosted post game press conference. Instead Metress took the opportunity to emphasize the pivotal contributions from senior Darren Lucas-White.
“He epitomizes us… He’s the guy,” Metress said with Lucas-White by his side. “Everybody wants to talk about Miguel, Tyree, Tyshaun. This is the guy who got all the loose ball rebounds.”
Lucas-White scored 8 points and snagged 4 steals. And he did a masterful job defending KJ Jones, the nation’s leading scorer. Jones scored 21 points in 40 minutes of action, but he was forced into commiting 8 turnovers.
The Jaguars never trailed after sprinting out to an 8-0 lead. Kirby scored 10 points in the first ten minutes to help his team take a 23-11 lead with 9:54 remaining. Emmanuel closed the deficit to 30-28 with 3:44 remaining in the first half. But Augusta closed the half with a 10-2 run that was punctuated with a three pointer by Arnold right before the buzzer that gave the Jaguars a 40-30 advantage.
The second half belonged to Crawford, who scored 19 points, including 9 made free throws, after halftime. It was the second consecutive game in which Crawford posted a monster second half. The national player of the year candidate scored 22 points in the second half last Sunday in Augusta’s Peach Belt Conference Tournament championship game win over Lander.
USC Aiken topped Catawba 88-79 in the fourth game played at Christenberry Fieldhouse Saturday. The Pacers were led by Tyler Johnson (24 points), Jalen McCoy (18), Tehree Horn (18), Karon Boyd (12) and Demitrios Dixon (10).
Augusta (27-5) is the top seed in this weekend’s Southeast Region Tournament. USC Aiken (23-9) is the four seed. The Pacers swept the Jaguars in the two regular season matchups between the rivals. The two teams entered the postseason as the Peach Belt Conference regular season co-champions.
Preceding the Augusta-USC Aiken game will be a second round matchup between No. 3 Lincoln Memorial and No. 7 North Georgia at 5:00 p.m.
