After trailing by 10 points at halftime, the Southern Miss basketball team battled back to take a 46-45 lead midway through the second half.
However, the Golden Eagles’ lack of bench depth proved to be the difference and allowed Old Dominion to come away with a 68-58 win at halftime.
“They did a better job of shooting the three tonight then they usually do,” Southern Miss head coach Jay Ladner said. “I thought we were a little slow adjusting [to the 3-point shooting], I have to take responsibility for that, we spotted them a 10-12 point lead, and obviously it ends up being a margin. On a positive note, I was very proud of our team coming from 12 or 14 points back and coming ahead with nine or 10 minutes left. They expended a lot of energy at that point and we just weren’t quite able to sustain that.”
The Golden Eagles’ lack of depth is attributed to the losses of Jay Malone, who had a 27-point game earlier in the season, and David McCoy due to academic ineligibility.
“Jay Malone and David McCoy didn’t meet the expectations of the university and the basketball program in terms of academics,” Ladner said. “There are suspended from the team in terms of being able to participate. It is important for us to have standards, in particularly first-year standards, in the way things are done. We want players that are engaged in the student-athlete process. Hopefully, they have learned their lesson from that and I think that they have.
“I don’t believe it will be possible for [Malone and McCoy] to come back in the spring. I do hope that they get serious and they have shown a change of attitude towards their academics, hopefully they will get back in good graces and be ready for next year.”
Southern Miss for the third time this season played just seven players on the night. With Gabe Watson played 40 minutes and Tyler Stevenson, Leonard Harper-Baker and LaDavius Draine each playing over 35 minutes in the game.
“We played seven guys but obviously playing five mainly,” Ladner said. “They are just going to have to be iron men. That’s what we have right now and that’s our team. That’s what we have and we are going to make the best of it.”
Southern Miss quickly found itself in a hole and trailed 24-11 midway through the first half and by halftime faced a 33-23 deficit.
Old Dominion found significant success in its 3-point shoot after going 7-of-16 from behind the arc while USM was shot 9-of-27 in the field by the end of the first half.
However, Southern Miss found life and took its lead with 9:57 left in the second half.
A key part of the second-half performance was LaDavius Draine, who, after scoring two points in the first half, finished with a team-leading 22 points with 15 of his points coming from 3-pointers.
“I thought we came out with a little more of a spark [at halftime],” Ladner said. “Once we made a shot or two, Draine kind of got going. I thought we began to execute a lot better. As long as they played man-to-man defense, we were able to kind of control what they were doing. They did a good job of switching to a zone defense and it kind of caught us off-guard a little bit, which is my responsibility.
“We’re a little bit limited with our one perimeter threat with LaDavius. You just can’t do it every single time down. In the zone defense, what they did was they shaded him real hard. We tried to run a couple of patterns to get him the ball, but at that point, you need to play underneath and inside and we just quite weren’t getting it done to chase them out of the zone.”
According to Ladner, the team’s shortage of players hurt the team’s ability to press and attributed that as the main reason for losing the lead.
“[Playing seven guys] limits somethings that we want to do defensively,” Ladner said. “We would like to press a little bit more than we are able to do right now. We probably should have done it earlier, but also when you press, you have to have numbers. It got to a point where I thought we have to and hopefully, the best would happen. What I was really hoping for was trying to build a six or eight-point lead and then try to control down the stretch and we were close. But we were just a few possessions short of that defensively. They went on a run there and it just kind of took the wind out of our sails.”
ODU responded with an 18-1 run and retook the lead at 61-47, which ultimately put the Golden Eagles away.
Notably, Tyler Stevenson finished the night with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds while Leonard Harper-Baker posted 10 points.
“We are really searching for consistency,” Ladner said. “I’ve got to try and figure that out. Our guys are fighting hard with a short bench, obviously, but they continue to battle and play hard. I look forward to getting back to practice tomorrow.”
Southern Miss will host Charlotte on Saturday at 2 p.m.
After trailing by 10 points at halftime, the Southern Miss basketball team battled back to take a 46-45 lead midway through the second half.
However, the Golden Eagles’ lack of bench depth proved to be the difference and allowed Old Dominion to come away with a 68-58 win on Thursday night.
“They did a better job of shooting the three tonight then they usually do,” Southern Miss head coach Jay Ladner said. “I thought we were a little slow adjusting [to the 3-point shooting], I have to take responsibility for that, we spotted them a 10-12 point lead, and obviously it ends up being a margin. On a positive note, I was very proud of our team coming from 12 or 14 points back and coming ahead with nine or 10 minutes left. They expended a lot of energy at that point and we just weren’t quite able to sustain that.”
The Golden Eagles’ lack of depth is attributed to the losses of Jay Malone, who had a 27-point game earlier in the season, and David McCoy due to academic ineligibility.
“Jay Malone and David McCoy didn’t meet the expectations of the university and the basketball program in terms of academics,” Ladner said. “There are suspended from the team in terms of being able to participate. It is important for us to have standards, in particularly first-year standards, in the way things are done. We want players that are engaged in the student-athlete process. Hopefully, they have learned their lesson from that and I think that they have.
“I don’t believe it will be possible for [Malone and McCoy] to come back in the spring. I do hope that they get serious and they have shown a change of attitude towards their academics, hopefully they will get back in good graces and be ready for next year.”
Southern Miss for the third time this season played just seven players on the night. Gabe Watson played 40 minutes while Tyler Stevenson, Leonard Harper-Baker and LaDavius Draine each played over 35 minutes in the game.
“We played seven guys but obviously playing five mainly,” Ladner said. “They are just going to have to be iron men. That’s what we have right now and that’s our team. That’s what we have and we are going to make the best of it.”
Southern Miss (6-16, 2-7 C-USA) quickly found itself in a hole and trailed 24-11 midway through the first half and by halftime faced a 33-23 deficit.
Old Dominion found significant success in its 3-point shoot after going 7-of-16 from behind the arc while USM was shot 9-of-27 in the field by the end of the first half.
However, Southern Miss found life and took its lead with 9:57 left in the second half.
A key part of the second-half performance was LaDavius Draine, who, after scoring two points in the first half, finished with a team-leading 22 points with 15 of his points coming from 3-pointers.
“I thought we came out with a little more of a spark [at halftime],” Ladner said. “Once we made a shot or two, Draine kind of got going. I thought we began to execute a lot better. As long as they played man-to-man defense, we were able to kind of control what they were doing. They did a good job of switching to a zone defense and it kind of caught us off-guard a little bit, which is my responsibility.
“We’re a little bit limited with our one perimeter threat with LaDavius. You just can’t do it every single time down. In the zone defense, what they did was they shaded him real hard. We tried to run a couple of patterns to get him the ball, but at that point, you need to play underneath and inside and we just quite weren’t getting it done to chase them out of the zone.”
According to Ladner, the team’s shortage of players hurt the team’s ability to press and attributed that as the main reason for losing the lead.
“[Playing seven guys] limits some things that we want to do defensively,” Ladner said. “We would like to press a little bit more than we are able to do right now. We probably should have done it earlier, but also when you press, you have to have numbers. It got to a point where I thought we have to and hopefully, the best would happen. What I was really hoping for was trying to build a six or eight-point lead and then try to control down the stretch and we were close. But we were just a few possessions short of that defensively. They went on a run there and it just kind of took the wind out of our sails.”
ODU (9-14, 5-4) responded with an 18-1 run and retook the lead at 61-47, which ultimately put the Golden Eagles away.
Notably, Tyler Stevenson finished the night with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds while Leonard Harper-Baker posted 10 points.
“We are really searching for consistency,” Ladner said. “I’ve got to try and figure that out. Our guys are fighting hard with a short bench, obviously, but they continue to battle and play hard. I look forward to getting back to practice tomorrow.”
Southern Miss will host Charlotte on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Old Dominion 68, Southern Miss 58
At Southern Miss
Old Dominion (9-14, 5-4 C-USA) - Aaron Carver 2 2-2 6, Joe Reece 3 1-2 9, Malik Curry 7 2-2 18, Xavier Green 3 0-0 8, A.J. Oliver II 4 5-7 17, Jaylin Hunter 0 0-0 0, Alfis Pilavios 0 0-0 0, Kalue Ezikpe 3 4-4 10. Field Goals: 22, Free Throws: 14-17, Total Points: 68.
Southern Miss (6-16, 2-7 C-USA) - Artur Konontsuk 0 0-0 0, Tyler Stevenson 7 4-5 18, Leonard Harper-Baker 4 1-1 10, Gabe Watson 2 1-2 5, LaDavius Draine 7 3-3 22, Boban Jacdonmi 0 1-2 2, Auston Leslie 1 0-0 2. Field Goals: 21, Free Throws: 10-13, Total Points: 58.
ODU 33 35 - 68
USM 23 35 - 58
3-pointers - ODU 10 (Oliver 4 Green 2, Curry 2, Reece 2), USM 6 (Draine 5, Harper-Baker). Total Fouls: ODU 12, USM 14. Fouled Out: None.
