STARKVILLE, Miss., - Two lackluster performances against Alabama State and Charlotte caused Rick Stansbury to make some changes late this week in practice.

Stansbury questioned his team's effort and toughness in those two performances but found a way to introduce new life in his new basketball team by way of Phil Turner.

Stansbury decided to go small inserting Turner in the four spot and the Bulldogs responded to prevail over South Alabama 79-60 to improve to 7-3 on the year.

"There is no question (going small) helped towards the outcome tonight," Stansbury said. "It opened some things up offensively for us, particularly with Jarvis (Varnado). We had to get some energy and emotion out there on the floor and there was a difference tonight. We had to win several battles and I felt we did a good job with our scoring and defense."

Turner's move created mismatches for the Jaguars to defend leaving Varnado inside to go to work. Varnado scored a game-high 21 points along with eight rebounds and six blocked shots.

"(Turner) gave us more offensive awareness," Varnado said. "Phil is a great offensive player. He broke down the defense and got in the lane and dished it off a couple times to me. We just spread it out and let me work down low. It was a real boost tonight."

Ravern Johnson collected 12 points including going 3-for-4 from beyond the arc. Turner finished with 10 points in his first start of the season.



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