You don’t have to look at the box score for long to determine how South Alabama dropped an 88-79 decision to Louisiana on Saturday at the Mitchell Center.

The Jaguars got out-rebounded 39-22, including 16-4 on the offensive glass. The Ragin’ Cajuns made 10 of 20 3-point attempts in beating South Alabama for the fourth straight time, a streak that includes a 71-66 victory in last season’s Sun Belt Conference tournament championship game.

“I’m just really disappointed in our fight and our toughness,” South Alabama coach Richie Riley said. “The message we’ve been trying to deliver is the fact that we lost these guys in the championship game last year. … We talked about the fight it was gonna take and we came in here and we had zero or little fight — no tough plays, no toughness about us.

“We scored some points; we usually do. We shot a good percentage, turned it over a little too much, but defensively and on the glass — no fight, no fight. We’ve got to get better that way, because you’re not gonna beat those guys without any fight.”

South Alabama (10-9, 3-4 Sun Belt) scored the game’s first seven points, but Louisiana (11-8, 4-3) scored the next nine and largely controlled the action after that. The Jaguars cut the lead to 63-60 with 7:23 remaining, but the Ragin’ Cajuns almost immediately got a 3-point play from Kentrell Garnett and it was at least a two-possession game the rest of the way.

Kobe Julien scored 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead Louisiana, while Joe Charles added 22 and 9. But perhaps the difference-maker for the Ragin’ Cajuns was 6-foot-8, 270-pound forward Hosana Kitenge, who had a double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds and kept South Alabama big man Thomas Howell in foul trouble much of the afternoon.

“I give him credit, he’s gotten a lot better,” Riley said of Kitenge, who played two years at Coastal Carolina before spending last season in junior college. “… He ended up back in our league and this time around, he’s been really productive. He does some great things and they went to him a lot. It’s one of those deals where you would like to be able to guard him one-on-one.

“… Where he really made us pay — he had a couple where he would miss and get it back, miss and get it back. If we could have found a way to limit him to one shot on some of those touches that probably makes up 8-11 points. … It really is just toughness.”

Still, South Alabama had a shot in the final two minutes after an Elijah Ormiston 3-pointer and two Isiah Gaiter free throws cut Louisiana’s lead to 83-79. But Garnett — who scored 14 points on the day — drilled a 3-pointer on the other end with 1:12 to play, and that was essentially the ball game.

Gaiter led South Alabama with 25 points, while Ormiston had his best game in two seasons as a Jaguar with 23 points and a team-high six rebounds. However, Samuel Tabe was the only other USA player in double figures with 11 points, and the Jaguars got just five points off the bench — all from freshman guard Marcus Millender.

Louisiana scored 15 “second-chance” points, as opposed to just four for South Alabama. Ormiston also invoked the “T-word” to describe his team’s failings on Saturday.

“It just comes down to toughness,” Ormiston said. “They came in with some grit and toughness. That’s something that we need to work on, just being gritty and tough because (rebounds are) there. There were a lot of them we could have grabbed but didn’t, and they capitalized on a lot of those rebounds to put shots right back up.”

Louisiana has now won five of six in the series vs. South Alabama, including four straight in Mobile. The Jaguars last beat the Ragin’ Cajuns at the Mitchell Center during the COVID-shortened 2019-2020 season.

South Alabama is on the road for its next four games, beginning at Louisiana-Monroe at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.