Men's Basketball Set for Monday Night Matchup at Texas Tech

Monday, December 16

Lubbock, TX

6 p.m. CT

Southern Miss

Texas Tech

Men's Basketball Set for Monday Night Matchup at Texas Tech

12/15/2019 12:51:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Game Notes (PDF)

HOUSTON, Texas -- Southern Miss is halfway through its trip to Lubbock, where it will play defending national runner-up Texas Tech on Monday night. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.

Rich Hollenberg and Chris Spatola will have the television call, and John Cox will carry the game on the Southern Miss Learfield IMG Sports Network (Rock 104.5 in Hattiesburg/Laurel) and the Gameday app.

The Red Raiders (6-3) are coming off a 70-57 win over No. 1 Louisville on Tuesday night in New York City. They have also won 51-straight non-conference home games, five away from Butler for the active national lead.

Game Notes
– Southern Miss fell behind 16-4 to North Florida on Saturday, then took a five-point lead early in the second half, but an 11-0 run put the Ospreys ahead for good in a 72-69 defeat Saturday afternoon. UNF went 15-for-42 on three-pointers, the most attempts by any team in Reed Green Coliseum history, after entering the day with the national lead in triples per game. The Golden Eagles also fell behind 24-7 to Southern Illinois before reeling off a 21-3 run.

– The loss came despite Tyler Stevenson's career day in which the former walk-on scored 27 points on 11-for-18 shooting in 34 minutes, all of which were personal-bests. He made his first-career start against No. 7 Gonzaga, and since the Seton Hall contest, he has five-straight double-figure scoring outings (14.6 ppg). His classmate, Gabe Watson, earned his first-career double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds against UNF, also the team's second this year (Leonard Harper-Baker had 20 points, 11 boards versus SIU). Stevenson, from his freshman season, has upped his average minutes from 7.7 to 21, free-throw percentage 47.4 to 61.3 and scoring from 3.3 ppg to 11.4.

– Jay Malone produced seven-plus assists and no turnovers for the second time this season in the SIU win. Golden Eagle greats Tyree Griffin and Cortez Edwards accomplished such a feat once apiece last season. Watson has benefited the most from the move. Since going into a more-shooting guard role for the William Carey game, the sophomore has shot 48 percent (up from 31.8) for 14.3 ppg (previously 8.8).

– Southern Miss has missed Boban Jacdonmi the last two games due to injury. He leads the team in scoring (12.4 ppg) and field goal percentage (61.4) and is third in rebounds (6.4). He is one of three Golden Eagles with a start this season to leave due to injury (Angel Smith and Artur Konontsuk as the other two). The squad has still been young even when healthy, as exhibited in the Iowa State game where 136 of the team's 200 minutes were played by freshmen and sophomores.

– Harper-Baker, who has played the four-spot his two years in Hattiesburg, is now ninth in the nation with 28 steals, four more than his total last year. He is one of only four forwards in the top-50 for that category. He is shooting 50-plus percent for the second-straight season and is averaging four more minutes per game.

– As of Sunday, Southern Miss has the 94th-toughest schedule in the country (third-best in C-USA), according to ESPN's Basketball Power Index. It includes road games at South Alabama (preseason Sun Belt favorite) as well as two versus North Florida, picked to finish third in the A-Sun. Gonzaga and Seton Hall are also expected to make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, and Tulane and Iowa State have earned top-25 votes recently.

– Opponents are averaging 8.8 more free-throw attempts per game, and the last two games have been steps in the right direction. Not only did the Golden Eagles make their final four free-throws in the deciding 26 seconds versus SIU, but they also had 20 attempts for the third time this year. Saturday's game was the third time the Black and Gold had more attempts than its foe. By comparison, Jay Ladner's 2018-19 Southeastern Louisiana squad averaged 19.4 foul shots per contest, and that will continue to be an emphasis on his young Southern Miss squad (which is averaging 11.4).

– This is the second-straight year that a Jay Ladner-led team has headed to Lubbock. Southeastern Louisiana dropped a 59-40 contest on Nov. 13, 2018 to the Red Raiders, but did hold them to a 5-for-19 shooting night from deep. If Texas Tech were to be ranked, Southern Miss would be seeking its third-such win. It previously defeated No. 15 Arkansas in 2000 (the Golden Eagles won the C-USA regular-season title that year) and No. 21 Marquette in 2004. It would also be the program's first Big 12 win in its last six tries (defeated Nebraska in 1999).