The South Alabama Southern Miss matchup on Saturday ended with the Golden Eagles pulling away for a 66-54 victory, snapping the Jaguars’ four-game winning streak.
The loss dropped South Alabama to 7-3 on the season. Southern Miss, which was coming off its first loss of the year, improved to 6-1.
Runs Decide the First Half
South Alabama built an 18-11 lead with 11:44 left in the first half before Southern Miss answered with 15 consecutive points. The Jaguars responded with a 7-0 run of their own to pull within one, but the Golden Eagles carried a two-point lead into halftime.
Golden Eagles Pull Away
Through the first 10 minutes of the second half, Southern Miss held a lead that ranged from one to seven points. A three-point play followed by back-to-back layups pushed the margin to 11 with 6:41 remaining.
The Golden Eagles extended the advantage to 61-47 with less than five minutes to play, and South Alabama was unable to get within 10 points the rest of the way.
The Jaguars shot a season-low 29.1 percent from the field for the game, including 24 percent in the second half.
Arrow Credits Southern Miss
South Alabama head coach Ronnie Arrow pointed to the play of Southern Miss forward Gary Flowers.
“The bottom line is they did a really good job tonight,” Arrow said. “We couldn’t stop Gary Flowers. He hurt us on the boards and shooting. He backed us down and he shot over us. We didn’t shoot the ball at all, but they had a lot to do with that. They took it right to us.”
Arrow also took responsibility for how his team handled the Golden Eagles’ zone defense.
“It seemed like we always had the wrong guy shooting the ball,” Arrow said. “We didn’t attack the zone very well, and that’s my fault. We just didn’t get our guys ready for a zone. We worked on it, but evidently I did a poor job of getting them to understand exactly what had to be done.”
He added that the team “played immaturely tonight” and said he hoped the Jaguars would grow from the experience.
Leading Scorers
Allyn Cooks led South Alabama with 13 points. Bryan Sherrer added 11 and Tim Williams scored 10 as the only other Jaguars in double figures.
Up Next
South Alabama hosts Arkansas-Little Rock in a Sun Belt Conference game Wednesday at the Mitchell Center in Mobile. Tipoff is set for 8:05 p.m., and the game will be televised on ESPN2.
