South Alabama basketball rolls past Spring Hill, 95-61

South Alabama led wire-to-wire in a 95-61 victory over Spring Hill on Monday night at the Mitchell Center.

The Jaguars not only posted a season-high in points vs. their cross-town rival, but shot 52% from the field and made 13 3-pointers. With its second straight win, South Alabama is over the .500 mark for the first time this season at 3-2.

"It's good to get a win, and that's two in a row at home for us," said South Alabama coach Richie Riley, whose team beat Mercer 75-66 on Saturday. "We always want to hold home court and we did that. "... We've never been up this much in a game with this group. All our games have been really hard-fought at this point. We didn't really hold the focus and energy after halftime, which was a little bit frustrating. But again, we've not been in that situation this year."

The hot shooting of guard Walter Peggs — who scored a game-high 30 points — kept the Badgers in the game early, but the Jaguars began to pull away in the final 10 minutes of the first half. South Alabama hit seven 3-pointers in an 8-minute span to turn a 16-16 game at the 13:37 mark to 45-23 with 4:48 left in the half.

South Alabama led 52-25 at halftime before Spring Hill — a Division II program officially counting Monday's game as an exhibition — got within 18 at 60-42 following the sixth of Peggs' seven 3s with 15:28 to play. South Alabama turned on the gas again in the final nine minutes, however, putting the game away with a 19-0 run.

"We came out with a lot of force," South Alabama guard JJ Wheat said. "We want to send a message to everybody in our conference and everybody we play that we've got some dogs on this team. So they've got to get ready for us."

Dylan Fasoyiro led four South Alabama players in double figures with 19 points, while John Broom had 14, Myles Corey 13 and Barry Dunning 11. Broom added nine rebounds, while Wheat had eight points and eight assists off the bench.

Cantia Rahming and Judah Brown both scored nine in limited minutes for South Alabama. The Jaguars had 23 assists and just eight turnovers, forcing 23 turnovers by Spring Hill, which shot 34% and made 13 3-pointers.

Peggs was the only player in double figures for Spring Hill, but did his damage in just 31 minutes. The Tennessee Tech transfer was 9-for-20 from the field, 7-for-15 on 3-pointers and made all five of his free throws.

"I thought some of our errors, though, that gave up 3s were self-inflicted," Riley said. "We've got to clean some of that up. But statistically, we did a good job. We forced 23 turnovers, which is a great number. We had 18 steals, which is a big-time number. From an offensive standpoint, 23 assists, eight turnovers — that's what we want, to be incredibly unselfish with great value. We shot over 50% from the field, got to the line 24 times and won the battle on the glass and defensively."

South Alabama appeared on pace for its first 100-point game in three years before Riley subbed out most of his starters late. The Jaguars have reached the century mark three times in Riley's seven seasons, most recently vs. Spring Hill in the 2021-22 opener.

South Alabama had only nine active scholarship players for Monday's game, with guard Maxwell Land out for the year with a knee injury and guard Jayden Cooper and forward Julian Margrave sidelined until at least next week with foot/ankle injuries. Riley said the Jaguars plan to redshirt sophomore Ethan Kizer, who played in 17 games as a true freshman last season but had not yet seen action this year.

"We talked about it and I think a year in the weight room can do a lot of good," Riley said of Kizer. "We've seen the impact it had on Broom, who redshirted last year. He put on 25-30 pounds and you can see the impact it's had on his game. ... We're hoping that Kizer can follow a similar plan to that."

South Alabama takes the rest of the week off before beginning a stretch of three games in five days next Monday vs. Incarnate Word in the Jaguar Classic. That game tips off at 7 p.m. at the Mitchell Center.