Southern Miss (6-13, C-USA 1-5) faced off against the Mean Green of North Texas (13-4, C-USA 6-1) on Thursday night in the Reed Green Coliseum, competing close throughout the match, but yet again, falling short.
Southern Miss had plenty of opportunities against North Texas but the story of the game was as whenever the Golden Eagles started to gain momentum, North Texas snatched it and, eventually, the game away from Southern Miss.
“That’s the second game in a row, we’ve gotten off to a fast start, I’m pleased with that, one of the things that I thought had plagued us, earlier in the year was some slow starts, but we’ve seemed to have kind of gotten some rhythm with that particular group…”Southern Miss Head Coach Jay Ladner said.
The Golden Eagles started off the game on a 10-0 run, with points early from DeAndre Pinckney and Rashad Bolden. Though the Golden Eagles would have a hot start to the first half, the Mean Green crawled back into the game.
The first half turned into a slow paced, back and forth battle, ending in a halftime score with North Texas leading Southern Miss 32-28.
Coming out of the half, The Golden Eagles started hot with two and-one plays from DeAndre Pinckney and Tyler Stevenson to make the game 37-32.
However, the Mean Green went on a 11-2 run to regain the lead and didn’t lose it for the rest of the game.
North Texas demolished Southern Miss in the rebounding battle, beating them 36-17 on the boards.
North Texas took advantage of late turnovers by Southern Miss and another scoring drought that the Golden Eagles suffered for two minutes.
“We just [have] got to keep our composure, we’ll be able to score offensively but if we let them take us out our game, it’ll be difficult” Stevenson said.
Stevenson again led the Golden Eagles scoring as he finished with 17 points on an efficient seven of twelve shooting, three rebounds and three steals. Ladner continues to heavily utilize Stevenson as he recorded his second straight game with over 35 minutes.
North Texas extended its lead to 11 points, but the Golden Eagles still fought in the final 1:30 of the game, bringing the deficit down to four.
Mardrez Mcbride, who finished with 21 points, iced the game with a three-pointer to hand Southern Miss the loss.
DeAndre Pinckney finished with 15 points, 5 rebounds and one steal for the Golden Eagles. Isaih Moore played 14 minutes off the bench with three points and three rebounds in his first game back after serving a four-game suspension.
“He’s a talented young man and I think he could be the difference down the stretch too and of course, that’s why we wanted to go ahead and kind of get him in there tonight, start kind of getting him back in rhythm and so forth,” Ladner said.
While Southern Miss remains second to last in the west division of C-USA, North Texas’ win puts them in a three-way tie with LA Tech and UAB for first place.
Southern Miss has a quick turnaround to its next home game against Rice this Saturday at 2 p.m.
