Southern Miss added hardware to their storybook year in the most unlikely season as the Golden Eagles outright won the Sun Belt regular season title after defeating Texas State 79-69.
Despite winning 21 games in the last year three years, being picked to finish last in the Sun Belt, and featuring nine first-year players, the Golden Eagles have now won 25 games and are having one of the best turnarounds in NCAA history.
"A lot of people threw us under the bus," Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner said in the postgame interview. "I told the team the same guys criticize you are same praising you, so I said keep the blinders on...I knew they were ready. You could feel it.
"A great effort by our team. Now we have some momentum. We haven't peaked."
It's Southern Miss's first regular season title since the vacated 2013-014 season and the first outright since 1990-91. The Golden Eagles also receive an automatic bid to the NIT tournament, the first since the 2013-24 season. It is also the first time that USM will play in the postseason since the 2018-19 appearance in the CBI tournament.
"I couldn't be happier or blessed to be the coach of this program," Ladner said.
Southern Miss was aided by a loss by Marshall, who was tied for first place but fell to Old Dominion 71-67.
Against Texas State, the Golden Eagles broke away midway in the first half as they trailed 20-19 but went on a 10-0 run. Southern Miss never looked back and built as much as an 18-point lead in the second half.
Southern Miss was led by Felipe Haase, who scored a game-high of 26 points. Austin Crowley tacked on 17 points, with Neftali Alvarez scoring 15 points and Deinjay Harris adding 14.
"It started with a vision back in April," said Haase. "I doubted it, of course, because of what happened last year. We knew we had the pieces to compete against everybody. I'm so proud of my teammates.
"We have focused on ourselves the whole year, and now hopefully, we'll have some luck too."
Southern Miss now clinches the top seed heading into the Sun Belt conference tournament, which is held in Pensacola, Florida. The Golden Eagles will play the winner of No. 6 Georgia, who will play the winner of No. 8 South Alabama and No. 9 Appalachian State.
USM will play on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
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