University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Eagles End Four-Game Home Stand
11/29/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Eagles End Four-Game Home Stand
Hattiesburg, Miss. - Southern Miss' Golden Eagles try to add victory No. 101 for Head Coach James Green Saturday night against a 2-1 South Alabama team that is coming off a 77-64 victory over Birmingham Southern.
Green recorded his 100th Southern Miss coaching victory with a 77-70 victory over Troy State Wednesday night. Green is just the third Golden Eagle coach ever to win 100 games at Southern Miss. M.K. Turk won 301 games in 20 years and Lee Floyd 246 in 14 years. The three are remarkable similar. Floyd averaged 17.6 victories a season, Turk 15.1 a year and Green is at 16.2 a season.
That game ends a Saturday football-basketball twinbill on the Southern Miss campus, with football, against East Carolina, starting at 2 p.m.
The Golden Eagles are unbeaten in three games this season and are averaging 78.3 points a game, while holding the combined opposition to 67.3 points a game. Perhaps even more impressively, the Eagles have won the battle of the boards, by a healthy 43.3-to-32.7 margin.
For the visitors who are playing their first season for new head coach John Pelphrey, four players are averaging double-figure points, with Chris Young leading the way at 15.3 points a game. The Jaguars are outscoring the opposition by almost 10 points a game (73.7-65.3), but are losing the rebounding battle, 40.3-to-33.3 a game.
Senior guard Mario Myles turned the Troy State game in Southern Miss' favor down the stretch as he hit 6-of-10 from the field and 8-of-8 from the line for a game- and career-high 21 points. Junior forward Charles Gaines recorded his third straight double-double, with 13 points and 13 rebounds in the Troy State game. He leads the Eagles in both departments, at 26.7 points and 12.3 rebounds a game.
Junior center Geoffrey Brown, playing in his second game as a Golden Eagle, also reached double-double numbers with 10 rebounds and 13 points.
Following Saturday's game, the Eagles play in the Gazette Hawkeye Challenge, Dec. 6-7 in Iowa City, Iowa, meeting Jacksonville in the first game of the tournament on Dec. 6 at 5:45 p.m.