University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss Hosts UAB on Kay James Day
1/28/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The Southern Miss Women's basketball team (12-8, 4-4) will face the Blazers of UAB (10-9, 3-5) on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. for Kay James Day.
The Blazers and Lady Eagles are very familiar with each other and have played 60 times since 1979. The two teams met twice last season and UAB came out the victor in both meetings.
Southern Miss, coming off of an impressive 81-61 win against Middle Tennessee, looks to extinguish UAB in Reed Green Coliseum. The Blazers have not won in Reed Green Coliseum since 2013.
"We're going to try to remain consistent on both ends of the floor," said assistant head coach Kiley Hill. "More importantly is our defensive end because that's where we've been hit or miss over this two to three week stretch. We want to be the same basketball team that arrived on Thursday night. UAB's post play can shoot it so well, which can create some issues for us. We can counter that with some of our mismatch opportunities."
The Lady Eagles will honor Coach James who was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame last summer, during halftime.
The first 500 fans at the game with be given a mini poster of the legendary coach.
A pregame social open to all Wings members, M-Club members, Women's Basketball season ticket holders, Eagle Club members and former Lady Eagles will be held before the game.
Any former Women's Basketball Letter Winners, which includes all former players, coaches, trainers, and managers, are invited back to be a part of this celebration and can receive up to four complimentary tickets to the game. An RSVP to Eric Beatty with Southern Miss Sports Marketing by Jan. 28 is required. He can be contacted at Eric.Beatty@usm.edu or reached at 601-266-6629.
Under the guidance of Coach James the Lady Eagles made 10 postseason appearances (1981 AIAW; 1982 WNIT; 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996-NCAA), secured four conference and three regular season championships, earned two top 20 rankings and 488 wins.
James coached 16 all-conference players, 11 first team players, four Conference Player of the Year selections and one Kodak All-American. James also coached with USA Basketball as an assistant with the U.S. Olympic Festival in 1989, and in 1992, as an assistant for the Women's Select Team that won the gold medal in the R. William Jones Cup in Taipei, Taiwan.
