Men’s Basketball Drops Conference Opener to Southern Miss

Thursday, December 29

Hattiesburg, Miss.

7 p.m.

Troy University

8-6,0-1Sun Belt

Southern Miss

12-2,1-0Sun Belt

Troy

Southern Miss.

Men’s Basketball Drops Conference Opener to Southern Miss

12/29/2022 10:11:00 PM | Basketball (M)

Box Score BOX SCORE (PDF)

By: Troy Athletics Communications

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – A last-chance effort in the final three minutes came up short for Troy as the team fell in the conference opener, 64-60, to Southern Miss on Thursday night in the Reed Green Coliseum.

The Trojans (8-6, 0-1 SBC) fall in their conference opener for the first time in Cross's tenure and the first time since the 2018-19 season.

Zay Williams led the Trojans in scoring for the second straight game with 19 points on 5-of-8 from the field and 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Kieffer Punter (14) and Aamer Muhammad (11) finished in double figures alongside Williams, accounting for 73.3 percent of the points for Troy.

Austin Crowley (17), Felipe Haase (16), Denijay Harris (12) and DeAndre Pinckney (10) scored 85.9 percent of the Golden Eagles' (12-2, 1-0 SBC) points as their Sun Belt era opens with a victory.

Set the Tone in the Second
After combining for the lowest-scoring half for the Trojans this season (49), the Golden Eagles jumped to a fast start in the second.

Haase got Southern Miss through the scoring troubles, netting the opening bucket in the second, 0:15 into the half, off the assist from Pinckney, 28-23.

The opening bucket started a 10-2 run for the Golden Eagles that saw six straight points for Southern Miss. Crowley finished the 6-0 spurt inside with the lay-in with 18:15 remaining, 32-23.

Williams interrupted the run briefly with two makes at the free-throw line. However, Haase immediately responded with a jumper, followed by a bucket in the paint from Harris to give Southern Miss the necessary cushion, 36-25 with 16:27 left.

Fight Back
Things seemed bleak for the Trojans with 2:40 remaining after Crowley took the assist from Mo Arnold in transition for the fastbreak bucket to extend the USM lead to 10, 57-47.

Punter continued his prolific second half on the next possession, delivering the 3-point bucket to cut the USM lead to seven, 57-50 – 2:24 remaining.

After a minute-long drought from both sides, Christian Turner received the cross-court pass from Punter in transition for the easy layup at the 19:03 mark to bring the deficit to five, 57-52.

Another make from deep for Punter, a slam from Williams and a couple of free throws continued to cut the margin, but the Golden Eagles shot 7-of-10 from the line in the final minute to hold off the Trojans, 64-60.

Head Coach Scott Cross
"They just got us so out of rhythm in the first half. They did their 2-2-1 zone to matchup against us, and they are really good at it. We worked so hard these past few days on defense, and there were some improvements tonight. We played good enough defensively to get the win. Mentally, we made too many mistakes. In the first half, we had two assists and 11 turnovers. It shows that mentally we weren't there—credit to them. Defense has to be a constant because if we know what we are going to get defensively, we can implement it and spend more time on how we are going to scout and attack them. I felt like we didn't execute the way we needed to. We struggled to get open shots. As a coach, our guys played hard, and it made the loss a little bit better. A game like this shows we can win basketball games. We are better. We just have to get back to work and have a short memory. We got the defending regular season champs next, and I'm confident we can split the weekend series."

Conference Opener Notes
• Troy scored 23 points in the first half, marking a season-low for the Trojans despite leading in 3-point percentage, free throw percentage and blocks.
• Williams was the only player to enter double figures at the first half's conclusion, scoring 12 points on 3-of-4 from the field and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.
• Troy lit up the scoreboard from deep in the second half, hitting seven from behind the arc compared to one in the first. The Trojans also limited USM to two makes from the 3-point range.
• Troy's coaches made the proper adjustments to create ball movement, increasing the assist numbers from two in the first half to 11 in the second.
• Eugene's streak of eight straight games in double-digit points comes to a halt after scoring five points in the loss. The junior also had five rebounds, three assists and one steal.

Closing out 2022
The road trip continues for the Trojans when they travel to face the defending regular season champions, Texas State, to close out 2022 in Bobcat Stadium at 4 p.m.