University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Eagles Continue Three-Game Home Stand
12/17/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Eagles Continue Three-Game Home Stand
Hattiesburg, Miss. - Southern Miss meets intrastate-rival Millsaps, Tuesday night, Dec. 18, in what will be the first game between the two teams since a single, 1967 contest, a game the Golden Eagles won, 102-67.
The two teams were fairly regular rivals in the early years of then-Mississippi Normal School. They first played in 1915, and, prior to the 1947 game, played regularly until the 1941 season. Details, and sometimes even scores, of some of those early games are sketchy, and the scores, when available, are indicative of what the game of basketball was like during those early years. Available scores show Millsaps with such lopside victories as 66-18 (1916), and Southern Miss with an unusual 33-7 victory the same season. The two teams played four times that season.
Southern Miss leads the series, 16-12.
The Golden Eagles take a two-game win streak and a 4-3 record into the game, while Millsaps comes in with a perfect 7-0 record.
Millsaps has three players averaging in double figures with senior forward Daniel Waguespack leading the way with 16.1 points a game. The Majors are averaging 76.6 points a game, while limiting the combined opposition to 45.0 points a game.
Southern Miss enters the game with its first two-game win streak of the still young season after beating Morris Brown, 73-47, last weekend, to end a 10-day break for fall semester finals.
Senior forward Elvin Mims continued his early-season torrid pace with 28 points against the Wolverines. Mims has scored 110 points in the last four games for a 27.5 point-per-game average. He's currently the second-leading scorer in Conference USA.
Following tonight's game, the Eagles will enjoy a brief Christmas break, before ending 2001 play with a Dec. 28th game at Auburn. Thereafter, Southern Miss quickly gets into C-USA play with games at Memphis (Jan. 5) and South Florida (Jan. 8).