MOBILE, Ala. – UPIKE men's basketball hung around with the Sun Belt Conference preseason favorite early on, but South Alabama's size coupled with unlucky shooting allowed the Jaguars to pull away in an 82-51 loss for the Bears.

Pikeville matched South Alabama bucket-for-bucket early, and even held a 14-13 lead through the first five minutes. The Bears were able to stick around thanks to their strong defense in the first half.

Despite the final margin, Pikeville was able to take quite a few positives away from the game. Most notably was the stellar performance from Luke Layhew, who led the Bears with 16 points on 7-8 shooting. He also had a team-high five rebounds.

Furthermore, the Bears perimeter defense was great throughout the night. Only 25 of USA's points came from outside the paint and free-throw line.

South Alabama was held to 41 percent shooting and UPIKE stopped the Jags from hitting a single 3-pointer in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately, those same tough bounces also went UPIKE's direction as well as the Bears were held to 31 percent from the floor.

In addition to UPIKE's strong start, the Bears also closed the game out well. Accounting for just the first and last ten minutes each of the game, South Alabama only outscored Pikeville by one point.

Many of the shots that usually fall for the Bears couldn't find their way in on Wednesday, especially from distance where Pikeville was 2-13 on the night.

South Alabama used their size to wear down Pikeville in the second half and eliminate their inside game. As a result, the Jaguars pulled away in the second half to take the win in its season opener.

UP NEXT

UPIKE returns home from the long road trip to face Ohio-Eastern at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Appalachian Wireless Arena.

-UPIKE-