HATTIESBURG, Ms – Southern Miss used the strong second half to pull away from Arkansas State 73-57 to stay undefeated at Reed Green Coliseum. The Golden Eagles are now 18-4 and sit atop the Sun Belt, with Marshall losing to ULM.

“We were able to kind of grind through. I was hoping that a couple of times that we would kind of bust it on out of there but give them credit. They’d hit a shot or kind of get a stop or maybe we didn’t in a fast break situation, something like that. But I thought overall, overall, it was a good effort.” Southern Miss head coach Jay Ladner said.

The Golden Eagles came out of the gate very slow and sluggish. They were shooting just 3-9 in the opening six minutes. The Red Wolves led the game at the first media timeout 8-6 before Southern Miss woke up with an 11-0 run. After that, Southern Miss never lost the lead. For the rest of the first half, the Golden Eagles maintained control but never seemed to have the same energy they had over the weekend.

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Charlie Luttrell

“Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t think we quite had it. I thought we played hard but didn’t have that just a little bit extra. I thought we were a little bit behind on a few things. And I thought we did a better job in the second half.” Ladner said.

To start the second half, Austin Crowley almost threw a dunk over an Arkansas State defender. After that, Southern Miss seemed to have their energy back. Southern Miss started to pull away by going on quick little runs to stretch the lead out.

“The main thing is, definitely playing for one another. That’s something we put an emphasis on since we all got here. That’s why you guys can see we got that good chemistry; we bond so well.” Forward DeAndre Pinckney said.

Pinckney led the team in scoring with 18 points on 6-9 shooting. Denijay Harris (11), Felipe Hasse (13) and Crowley (18) closely followed him. Harris added a double-double to his column.

Southern Miss dominated the boards against the Red Wolves in a similar fashion as they did last time these two ball clubs met up in Jonesboro. USM outrebounded Arkansas State 44-26 with 17 offensive rebounds and 11 second-chance points to three for the Red Wolves.

“We have a main focus every game of winning the stat sheet. So as far as points, field goal percentage, rebounds, assists. Earlier in the season we weren’t doing that good of a job of rebounding. So, at that point, coach made a big focus on rebounding. And ever since that it’s been, let’s get up and crash the glass.” Pinckney said.

The bigs played well tonight for the Golden Eagles, as they had an obvious size advantage.

The Golden Eagles welcomed in 4,266 fans into the Reed Green, which is the third straight game 4,000 fans have been in attendance.

“We have got a bunch of guys in there want to do something. They talk about making history they’re very aware, of where we’ve been over the last few years. They want to turn they want to be the group that’s looked back at.” Ladner said.

Southern Miss is on track to make history, still knotted at the Sun Belt standings first place. Southern Miss takes on Texas State on Saturday at 2 PM.