The new chapter in Southern Miss athletics is set to begin, as USM is just under one week away from officially becoming a member of the Sun Belt Conference, which will start on July 1.
Heading into the Sun Belt, USM features 17 varsity programs. With new league play set to begin in the upcoming athletic year between 2022-23, here is a breakdown of which Southern Miss programs will be immediate contenders for the Sun Belt in their first season.
Women’s Track and Field
Since taking over the track and field programs in 2015, head track coach Jon Stuart has turned USM into a regular contender for the Conference USA crowns in both the indoor and outdoor track seasons.
But Stuart’s best work is showcased with the women’s program, as he has turned in some of his best work in the last two years. Stuart has helped guide them to back-to-back C-USA indoor titles. Not to mention, in 2018, the women won the C-USA Indoor title and placed second in outdoor.
In his span, Stuart has helped coach over 40 individual conference champions, as well as 11 First-Team All-Americans between both the men’s and women’s programs.
The biggest challenge for the Golden Eagles will be Arkansas State, which has won the Sun Belt Outdoor title for three straight years.
Using Southern Miss’ results from the C-USA indoor and outdoor championships, the Golden Eagles would have gone from scoring 91 points to 125 in the Sun Belt outdoor championships. In the C-USA indoor championships, USM scored 101 points to win the title, but in the Sun Belt, that mark would have improved to 143.
Despite the significant point total improvements, USM would have finished third in the Sun Belt outdoor championships, as Coastal Carolina finished second with 137 points and Arkansas State finished first with 157 points. Southern Miss would have finished in second place, just two points behind Arkansas State, in the indoor championships.
It is worth pointing out that the men’s program will have several immediate contenders. However, since USM lacks distance runners, as the school does not carry a men’s cross country team, the chances for a team championship are unlikely. Yet under Stuart, the men’s program did finish in second place in the C-USA Outdoor Championships back in 2018.
Women’s Soccer
In the last four seasons, women’s coach Mohammed El-Zare turned the women’s soccer program into a genuine contender for the competitive C-USA crown as the Golden Eagles have posted a 37-26-6 mark in that span.
Keep in mind that Conference USA is one of the more competitive soccer leagues, with it regularly having four to five teams in the top 100 of RPI (rating percentage index), along with some programs being ranked in the top 25.
To recap, USM is coming off arguably its best season in program history after winning its first-ever division title while making its second-ever appearance in the conference championship game. The Golden Eagles made their first appearance in the C-USA title game in 2018 and then, in the shortened 2021 spring season, reached the conference semifinals.
The Sun Belt will be a significant change, with South Alabama having won eight of the last nine conference titles. The Sun Belt has been nowhere near as competitive compared to C-USA, with typically just one team holding an RPI that’s under 100, which has been South Alabama.
Southern Miss has notably beaten South Alabama in the last two matchups going back to 2018 and 2019; both were 1-0 victories for the Golden Eagles.
The addition of Old Dominion, who defeated USM in last season’s conference championship game, does create more competition.
The Golden Eagles lost a talented senior class, but El-Zare has proven the program’s ability to reload in the past few seasons.
Women’s Basketball
The Southern Miss women’s basketball program has yet to make the postseason since its 2017 NIT berth, while coach Joye Lee-McNelis is still hoping to have her team reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1996.
McNelis returns a strong roster that’s been developing and showed vast improvement in the last two seasons. This past year, the predominantly young Lady Eagles finished 18-12 amongst a strong year for C-USA as USM reached the semifinals in the conference tournament.
C-USA sent four teams to the NIT tournament, along with Louisiana Tech earning the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Golden Eagles made a push for a spot in the NIT but came up short.
By comparison, the Sun Belt had only two teams reach the postseason, departing UT-Arlington, that won the conference tournament to head to the NCAA tournament. Troy, the conference runner-up, earned a bid to the WNIT. Heading into next season, Old Dominion will have been the only team to reach the postseason, as the Lady Monarchs competed in the WNIT in their final season in C-USA.
Southern Miss was one of the best teams to play inside the paint. The Lady Eagles were ranked in the top five in field goal percentage and rebounds, which played a large part in their success last year. What makes Southern Miss an instant contender is that the Lady Eagles return almost all of their production and have added significant talent from the transfer portal to their current roster.
Dominque Davis, a transfer from LSU, led USM last year with 14.3 points and 3.9 assists in her first full season. Davis was named C-USA’s Newcomer of the Year and could easily be a candidate for the Sun Belt’s Player of the Year.
USM lost starter Daisha Almond and center Kelsey Jones, but added Ole Miss transfer Jacorriah Bracey. Bracey was considered a five-star recruit and was the No. 1 ranked player in Mississippi. The Lady Eagles also add Seton Hall transfer Femi Funeus and junior college transfer Lani Cornfield.
Baseball
It’s safe to say that Southern Miss baseball joining the Sun Belt has fans excited, and rightfully so.
But even with Southern Miss returning an immense amount of talent from a team that was at one point ranked in the top five in the country and having just hosted a Super Regional, the Sun Belt will be no cakewalk.
The Golden Eagles racked up numerous accolades from this past season. Dating back to 2016, USM has also either won the conference regular season or conference tournament every season, with the lone exception being 2021. Southern Miss has reached the NCAA tournament every season since 2016.
Despite C-USA being the fifth-rated RPI league, USM is jumping into a much more competitive conference. The Sun Belt was a four-bid league with Georgia Southern hosting a regional, while Texas State and Coastal Carolina were both one win away from reaching Super Regionals. Not to mention, Louisiana won the conference tournament to steal the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. With the additions of USM and Old Dominion, the Sun Belt is likely to be the toughest Group of Five conferences in baseball. South Alabama can also not be forgotten, which missed the NCAA tournament this year but won the Sun Belt conference tournament in 2021.
Next year’s preseason polls could include several Sun Belt teams in the top 25 to start the year.
