PENSACOLA, Fla. — Southern Miss’ run through the Sun Belt Conference Tournament came up one win short of the championship game.
Top-seeded Troy used strong defense in the first half and timely shooting to defeat eighth-seeded Southern Miss 78-70 in the Sun Belt semifinal Saturday evening.
For the Golden Eagles, the loss ended hopes of reaching the program’s first Sun Belt title game after winning three consecutive games earlier in the week to reach the semifinal stage.
“You know, they’re never easy,” Southern Miss head coach Jay Ladner said. “Real proud of our team over the last month, the way that they played and got after it. We just didn’t quite play well enough tonight to beat a really good team and a really well-coached team.”
Southern Miss (19-16) showed early success attacking Troy’s man-to-man defense. The Golden Eagles scored on their first five possessions by driving the basketball to the rim and briefly grabbed momentum in the opening minutes.
But once Troy switched to a zone defense the game shifted.
“I thought in the first half we were super connected defensively, especially in our zone,” Troy head coach Scott Cross said. “They scored on the first five possessions, and it wasn’t looking good. But then we switched it up to the zone and started to get stops.”
Troy’s defensive adjustment slowed the Golden Eagles’ offense and eventually sparked the decisive stretch of the first half.
Southern Miss kept the game tight early, trailing just 25-22 after Isaac Taveras finished at the rim with seven minutes remaining before halftime. From there, the Trojans put together a 10-0 run over the next several minutes, stretching the lead to double digits and putting Southern Miss in catch-up mode.
The Golden Eagles entered halftime trailing 41-28.
The story of the first half was Tylik Weeks, the Sun Belt’s leading scorer, being held to just five points.
“They were kind of in a matching zone and denying the ball, making it tough,” Weeks said. “It just wasn’t one of my best days.”
Despite the deficit, Southern Miss continued to battle in the second half. The Golden Eagles outscored Troy 42-37 after halftime and cut the margin several times, but never fully erased the gap.
“I thought we were just a little bit behind it the whole game,” Ladner said. “A loose ball, communicating on defense, keeping a guy in front of us. We just weren’t as sharp as we needed to be.”
Taveras led the Golden Eagles with a career-high 32 points and nine rebounds, finishing 12 of 16 from the field in one of his best performances of the season. Djahi Binet added 14 points and seven rebounds while Weeks scored 15 points after a slow first half.
In the second half, Southern Miss started playing significantly better defense and didn’t allow a Troy field goal for more than 10 minutes of game time. But the Golden Eagles kept sending the Trojans to the foul line, nullifying the possibility of taking advantage of the lack of baskets.
“We couldn’t keep them off the foul line,” Ladner said. “We were making it easy on them to call fouls. We lacked discipline and fundamentals at times defensively. I thought we scored enough to win, even though it wasn’t quite our night.”
Troy went to the foul line 38 times and converted 31 of them for 82 percent shooting from the stripe. Southern Miss went to the line 20 times and converted 12 of them for 60 percent shooting.
Southern Miss entered the tournament as the No. 8 seed but rattled off three straight wins to reach the semifinal round. The Golden Eagles won eight of their last 11 games and played their best basketball during the final month of the season.
“Our guys didn’t come down here thinking it was some kind of Cinderella story,” Ladner said. “They felt like they belonged in this spot.”
That confidence showed throughout the tournament as Southern Miss leaned on its physical defense and attacking offense to push through the bracket.
“We’re proud of kind of our blue-collar mentality at Southern Miss,” Ladner said. “The grit and toughness and competitive spirit that these young men have — that’s what I’ll always remember about this team.”
Ladner said he believes the team deserves consideration for a postseason tournament bid.
“I certainly think we deserve to be considered for something,” Ladner said. “If you look at how we finished the year and the teams that we beat, I think this team deserves that opportunity.”
While the Golden Eagles fell short of their yearly goal of winning the league and reaching the NCAA Tournament, Ladner said this will be one of his favorite teams he has ever coached.
“This is going to be one of my favorite teams when my time’s done,” Ladner said. “They had so many opportunities during the year to throw in the towel or become fractured, and they never did. They just kept grinding.
“When you spend as much time together as we do, it becomes a family. And when it ends, that’s the part that hurts the most.”
