Defense Carries Men’s Basketball to Win over Bob Jones

Monday, November 30

Statesboro, Ga.

7 p.m.

Georgia Southern University

2-3

104

Bob Jones

6-2

Bob Jones University

Georgia Southern

104

Devince Boykins collected 11 points, two rebounds and two steals.

11/30/2015 10:06:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

The Eagles travel to Savannah State Wednesday for an 8 p.m. contest.

By: Marc Gignac

STATESBORO, Ga. – Tookie Brown led four Eagles in double-figure scoring with 15 points, and Georgia Southern tallied 21 steals and forced 29 turnovers in a 104-52 men's basketball victory over Bob Jones University Monday night in Hanner Fieldhouse.

Mike Hughes collected 11 points and five rebounds, while Devince Boykins netted 11 points for the Eagles (3-3). Shawn O'Connell scored 10 points.

Ray Holden finished with 11 points to lead Bob Jones (6-3), which lost its third straight contest.

Georgia Southern's 21 steals were one shy of the school record, set twice – vs. Little Rock in 1981 and The Citadel in 2004.

The story
Georgia Southern held Bob Jones to 1 of 17 on its first 18 shots of the game while building a 29-4 lead over the first 11:09 of the contest, and the Eagles led by 21 points at halftime. Georgia Southern heated up on the offensive end in the second half and shot 59 percent from the floor, including 9 of 16 from 3-point range. The Eagles wound up shooting 52 percent from the floor for the game while limiting Bob Jones to 29 percent, and Georgia Southern scored 38 points off of the Bruins' 29 miscues.

Quotable from Coach Mark Byington
"Defensively, we started pretty good. We were in a stance, we were talking and we were engaged defensively. Offensively, we were standing around too much, and the ball wasn't moving. In the second half, I thought we were pretty good both offensively and defensively."

"In the last two games, we saw a team that pressed us for 40 minutes, and then we saw a team that zoned us for 40 minutes so with a quick prep, we kind of lost some spacing, some fundamentals and some execution in our man offense. We have to get that going again, and we did that in the second half so I was encouraged by that."

On Devince Boykins
"Devince can do more than he's shown, and we want him to expand his role. He's built like a middle linebacker, he can dribble, he can shoot and he can do a lot of things. The thing he has to learn is our defensive system and how we have to guard. We want him to do more, we need him to do more and I was happy to see him get going in the first half."

Next up
Georgia Southern travels to Savannah State Wednesday at 8 p.m. to renew a rivalry against the Tigers. It will be the first meeting against Savannah State since 2005, and the Eagles own an 11-0 all-time mark in the series. It will be Georgia Southern's fourth game in eight days.

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