University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Golden Eagles Host Rice Saturday in Pivotal C-USA Matchup
1/20/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The homestand continues for the Southern Miss men's basketball team as it looks to move to 4-3 in Conference USA with a Saturday 4 p.m. game against Rice.
Live streaming of the game can be found on Southern Miss All Access and CUSA.tv. John Cox will have the call both there and on Rock 104.5 in Hattiesburg/Laurel. Tickets can be purchased through SouthernMissTickets.com, 1-800-844-TICK, or visiting the Reed Green Coliseum box office prior to the game.
Promotions for the game include Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day, complete with special Buy One Get One opportunities.
- Southern Miss is coming off its third consecutive Conference USA home victory, the first such instance in the Doc Sadler era. Thursday's 75-65 decision over North Texas saw Southern Miss jump out to a 10-1 lead, fall behind 18-17, and then rattle off a 21-2 run that put the Golden Eagles ahead for good early in the second half. Quinton Campbell produced a career-high 26 points on 8-for-14 shooting, and Bilal Abdur-Rahim collected a personal-best eight rebounds in just 19 minutes off the bench.
- Campbell's scoring effort was the best by a Golden Eagle since Kourtlin Jackson poured in 40 at Marshall in the 2016 finale. The team also committed single-digit turnovers for the second time in three games, something it had done once all year prior.
- The Golden Eagles through six C-USA games have the league's best field goal defense (40.3 percent) while ranking third in three-point field goals allowed (29.6 percent). North Texas made just nine of its 27 long-range attempts on Thursday night, making them Southern Miss' seventh opponent in the last nine games to finish 33 percent or lower. Offensively, the Golden Eagles are now 4-0 when scoring 70-plus points, and three of those games have come in C-USA action.
- Southern Miss trails only Marshall and Louisiana Tech for having the best turnover margin in C-USA play (+1.5). While the stage has gotten bigger in those games, so has the team's motivation in the clutch. The Golden Eagles' 73.3 percent free-throw clip is a nine-point improvement from non-conference games.
- Southern Miss has a valuable opportunity to get revenge on Rice after the last head-to-head meeting, as the Owls overcame a seven-point deficit in the final 38 seconds of regulation to win 76-74 in overtime on Feb. 25. The Owls also pulled out a 72-65 victory a few weeks prior. Campbell averaged 12.5 ppg in the two contests, while Khari Price averaged 11 points and 7.5 assists for the series.
- The Golden Eagles have shot 50 percent or better in a half for five consecutive home games, beginning with the Dec. 10 contest against Tulane. The best of those came when the Black and Gold shot 57.1 percent in the second stanza versus LA Tech on New Year's Day.Southern Miss has also attempted 59 free-throws over the last two games, its most since also having 59 against North Texas and Rice in the final two home games of 2016.
- One cannot talk about Rice basketball without immediately bringing up stud Egor Koulechov. His 19.4 points and 8.4 rebounds per game are downplayed by his 52 percent field goal shooting that is still less than his three-point clip for the year (53 percent). In C-USA play, the redshirt-junior from Volgograd, Russia, leads everyone with 21 points and 11 rebounds per game. Koulechov even poured in 31 points against still-unbeaten Middle Tennessee, a team receiving votes in the poll as well.
- Head coach Mike Rhoades led Rice to 15 league wins in his first two years, the most by an Owl coach in such a situation since 1992-94. He has helped instill an offense in Year Three that enters Saturday with an average of 83 points per game and 48.3 percent shooting. Rhoades was an assistant on the 2011 VCU Final Four team.
