BATON ROUGE - Southern basketball snapped a six game skid to open the season by knocking off NAIA Wiley College 74-65 on Tuesday night.

First year head coach Sean Woods called it a special moment to notch his first career win on the bluff.

"For my first official win at Southern, it is something I'll remember," smiled Woods. "We just have to continue to get better. The plan is to have a lot of these and it starts with this one."

In the Jaguars first home game, Sidney Umude dropped a team-high 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field. The up-tempo offense benefited from plenty of transition buckets. Southern forced Wiley into 20 turnovers and turned those takeaway into 20 points.
The largest lead of the night for Southern was nine, but Wiley never allowed the Jags to pull away.

Ferontay Banks gave Wiley a 62-61 lead with 5:32 remaining after making a 3-pointer, but Eddie Reese drilled a three at the other end to restore Southern's lead.

Reese had a productive night offensively, he poured in 16 points and added five rebounds, five assists for Southern (1-6). Saddler finished with 11 points. Aaron Ray added six points, six rebounds, six assists and three steals.

Southern will have to clean up some issues on the defensive end. The Jaguars allowed Wiley to knockdown 12 triples on 12-of-27 shooting from downtown.

Next up: The Jaguars will travel west down I-10 to face off with the Ragin' Cajuns of UL-Lafayette on Saturday inside the Cajun Dome.