University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Men's Basketball Seeking Third Consecutive Win Thursday at ODU
1/11/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The Southern Miss men's basketball team has headed out for its first Conference USA road trip of the year. The Golden Eagles play at Old Dominion at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday night, followed by Charlotte at the same time on Saturday.
The game can be found via the C-USA.tv online stream as well as with John Cox, Voice of the Golden Eagles, and the Southern Miss IMG Sports Network (104.5 in Hattiesburg/Laurel).
â€" Southern Miss heads into its first Conference USA road trip of the year feeling the best it has all year. Redshirt-senior guard Khari Price, the team's top returner in points, assists and steals from a year ago, made his return from offseason knee surgery and promptly scored 20 points in the UTSA win. Quinton Campbell (24 points, 10 boards versus UTEP) and Cortez Edwards (13 points, 13 boards against UTSA) each had their first-career double-doubles as part of their recent surges.
â€" Quinton Campbell is now averaging 20 ppg in three C-USA outings, twice his non-league average. He is 23-for-40 (58 percent) in C-USA play and has set or tied career-highs in field goal makes each of the last three games (7-8-8). Edwards, despite his 6-foot-2 stature, dominated the paint Saturday en route to a 7-for-9 day from the field, including two dunks, as his torrid sophomore year continues.
â€" Edwards had one start as a freshman and has now done so each of the past six games. In that span, he has bolstered his reputation as the most energetic on the team with 32-plus minutes each game (35 or more in the other five). This past weekend, he averaged 15 points and eight rebounds while making 12 of his 17 field goal attempts.
â€" UTSA made five of its nine deep attempts in the first half on Thursday, but Southern Miss buckled down to hold the Roadrunners to an 0-for-11 mark in the second. It was the first time the squad blanked an opponent on three-pointers in a half since UTSA went 0-for-7 in the second on Jan. 30, 2016. Also, the Golden Eagles allowed just six makes on 28 overall shot attempts in the second half, the third time in four games an opponent did not crack 25 percent in a half.
â€" Southern Miss has held each of its last six opponents to 36 percent or less from behind the three-point line. The only team to make more than one-third of its tries was Hawaii on Christmas Day. UTSA went 0-for-11 in the second half on Jan. 5. UTSA and UTEP each went the entire first half last weekend without a free-throw attempt. Offensively, Southern Miss is shooting over 50 percent (69-for-137) since halftime of the Louisiana Tech game (Jan. 1).
â€" The previous meeting for the teams was a memorable one for the Golden Eagles. Price had the third of his four career 20-point games, with one of those buckets putting his team ahead with 2:04 remaining. Quinton Campbell also hit a trio of three-pointers early in the game, and Southern Miss (49 percent shooting) ultimately held on 73-71 in Hattiesburg for its first C-USA win, dropping ODU to 9-7.
â€" Old Dominion is 3-1 in the league, first knocking off North Texas and Rice at home before falling 90-86 at Marshall and defeating WKU, 79-67. The Monarchs also fell in overtime to No. 10 Louisville back in November, and the following day lost 66-60 to LSU, the only mutual foe between them and Southern Miss to date.
â€" ODU's defense is best in C-USA (overall season) for points allowed (59.1), field goal percentage (39.2) and rebounding margin (+5.8). Brandan Stith is averaging 10.5 points and 8.2 boards per game, while Ahmad Caver and Zoran Talley round out the scoring leaderboard with 12.7 and 11.3, respectively.
