University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Eagles Open Regular Season, Against Alcorn
11/19/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Eagles Open Regular Season, Against Alcorn
Hattiesburg, Miss. - Southern Miss opens its regular season Friday night against an Alcorn State team that went 21-10 a year ago, including a 16-2 record in the SWAC. Game time is set for 7 p.m., in Green Coliseum and the game will be the first of four games, in the space of nine days.
Alcorn comes into the game off a 73-71 exhibition loss to Tougaloo. In that game, Alcorn got 24 points and 23 rebounds from junior center Lee Cook, to go along with three assists, a block and a steal. On the downside, the Braves committed 27 turnovers and shot just .176 (3-17) from three-point range. Reserve forward Brian Jackson added 12 points for the Braves.
For Southern Miss, the game will be the first for Head Coach James Green's Eagles since a 104-77 victory over Spirit Express in a Nov. 11, exhibition game. A second scheduled exhibition game was cancelled, when Global Sports failed to show, after a travel misunderstanding on the part of the visiting team.
In the earlier exhibition game, Southern Miss put five players in double figures, with senior guard Mario Myles leading the way with 20 points.
Southern Miss and Alcorn have played six times prior to tonight's game, with the Golden Eagles leading 5-1 in the series that started in 1979. In last year's game, Southern Miss had to come from behind to win, 66-60. The Braves led 39-30 in that game, only to see the Eagles outscore the visitors 36-21 in the second 20 minutes. Tori Harris led Alcorn with 16 points, on five-of-eight shooting from the floor.
Elvin Mims led Southern Miss with 25 points, while Ben Lambert added 16. Southern Miss shot just .352 (19-54), but made 25-of-37 free throw attempts. Lambert also had a game-high 12 rebounds in the game.