University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Quotes and Notes: Recapping the 2018-19 Men's Basketball Season
4/5/2019 9:24:00 AM | Men's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- As the Division I college basketball season wraps up this weekend, Southern Miss head coach Doc Sadler sat down with media members and reflected not just on the team's breakthrough, 20-win season, but also on the the earliest of outlooks into what the 2019-20 campaign will hold.
Below are some of his quotes, as well as several team and player-specific notes that defined the Golden Eagles this year.
On his overall feelings of the season
"I think that when we started up last summer, I knew we'd have a chance to have a good basketball team. With our schedule, I knew that early on we were going to have a challenge and wouldn't know how we'd do in wins and losses. I've known since I've been here to do whatever I could to best prepare the team for conference play and the tournament. We played some really good teams and challenged some people on the road, and our players withstood those. When we got into the league, we played our first three on the road and played really well in two of them, but just didn't win. At that point, you're 0-3 and to some people it may seem like another year, but I didn't have that feeling at all. I still thought we could be really good. The thing about an 18-game conference season is that you have to let them all roll out. You sometimes start with the lower teams and end with the top half, or it's the opposite. With our conference season, I thought we got better each game and started playing well on the road. Even in the games we weren't winning, I thought it was just the other team playing better than us.
"WKU (in the semifinals) was probably the toughest matchup in our league because they were so much bigger and more physical than us, and I thought we played well in that one. When you reflect on the whole season, I really felt we could be a good team but didn't expect 20 wins considering how tough it was. Our guys just continued to get better, compete and found ways to win close games. Looking back on the season, that's the biggest thing to me. We stayed the course and got better each and every game."
On the departure of seniors Cortez Edwards, Tyree Griffin, Anfernee Hampton, Kevin Holland and Dominic Magee
"You're gonna miss them a lot. Even Penny (Hampton), who didn't get to play a lot, is a guy you will miss leadership-wise each and every day. All five seniors will be missed in some way or another, and that's just college athletics. I really like the team we have coming back, but we will be so young. This is where I've always known we'd get, despite all the sanctions. You build your program, but with scholarship reductions, you're going to have years where you don't have juniors and seniors. That year will be next year. That can be a negative, but I'll look at it as a positive. It's a talented group of guys who have a chance every day to get better. We are losing a lot, but this group can do some things that are very special."
On the roles of returners
"They can't wait till next season to step up. This week has been the first chance we've had with individual workouts, and it has to start now. The leadership we will lose with five seniors is a lot. They've got to do a great job in that area."
On the roles of incoming players (three signed in early period)
"More than anything, we are getting longer and more athletic. One thing I'm concerned about is our shooting and rebounding. Even though we have been near the top every year defensively, I think this group can still be really good there. I want to see more out of our perimeter shooting since it will be essentially LaDavius Draine and Gabe Watson as the only guys with that experience, but some of the guys we have coming in can help us there too."
On Watson, who appeared in all 33 games as a freshman
"Gabe is a talented player. He's one of the most athletic guys on the floor. In order for him to be the best he can be, he has to give his fullest effort over a consistent time. The urgency has to be there every possession, and I think he got better at that as the season went on. He also has to continue being a better leader by communication. The point guard isn't just about himself, but about the entire team."
On what Sadler has learned about himself the most over the year and his Southern Miss tenure as a whole
"Patience. The other thing is understanding that you don't have to be out there three hours to get better. You can get a lot done in a shorter period of time. That's probably the two biggest things. For us, and we started this the other day, is holding guys more accountable in everything. We just haven't had the numbers to do that in recent years. That's the one thing I'm really looking forward to now. I want to do what I can not just to help our team, but to help our guys after basketball."
Team Notes
*Captured just the eighth, 20-win season since 2001 (including two that were vacated). Team was picked seventh preseason but finished in a tie for second.
*One of just three teams nationally to fully increase their league win total each time over a five-year span, joining Saint Louis and Florida A&M. Southern Miss won 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11 games from 2015-19. Only 13 schools had held that distinction over a four-year span leading into this season.
*Through Selection Sunday (the last available rankings), Southern Miss held the highest NET ranking among C-USA teams (91). Old Dominion was 100, WKU was 111 and LA Tech was 119.
*Entering postseason play, the team was one of six in the nation to not allow 80 points in a game all year (joining Michigan, Houston, Loyola Chicago, Maryland and Fordham. It was the longest such-streak by Southern Miss since 38 games from Dec. 2006 – Jan. 2008.
*Became one of just three teams in the last 10 years to earn a bye in the C-USA Tournament despite starting 0-3 in league play (also: UTEP in 2017, Marshall in 2010).
*Home attendance saw a 37 percent increase from last season, including two of the top-three crowds of the last five years.
*Southern Miss, in C-USA play, led the league in field goal shooting (47.8 percent), three-pointers (41.2) and field goal defense (40.4).
*The Golden Eagles broke the single-season school record with 275 made three-pointers.
*Team ranks No. 4 nationally in assist/turnover ratio (1.60) and No. 16 for fewest turnovers per game (10.5).
*Southern Miss' seven true road wins ranked second in C-USA, trailing only league champ ODU. It all happened despite the team going 30 days between home games (Dec. 11 – Jan. 10), the longest streak by a Golden Eagle team since the 1997-98 season.
*The 59-52 win at ODU was the Monarchs' only home defeat all season. The Monarchs are 67-11 at home since the start of the 2014-15 season.
*Twice led C-USA opponents by 50 this season, becoming the first school since Gonzaga in Feb. 2017 to do that even once to a league foe.
*The 101-51 win over Marshall broke a C-USA record for margin-of-victory between league teams. It marked the Herd's fewest points since March 5, 2015.
*The 81-48Â win over UTSAÂ on Senior Day marked the Roadrunners' fewest points in 80 games.
*Southern Miss shot a combined 60.8 percent in wins over Marshall, FIU and FAU, becoming the first Division I team to hit 60 for a three-game span since Michigan State in Dec. 2017 - Jan. 2018.
Individual Notes
*Cortez Edwards broke the school's all-time steals record, finishing his career with 200.
*Edwards also reached 1,401 points, good for No. 17 in school history. He is the only Golden Eagle to rank in the top-20 for scoring, top-15 for rebounds and top-10 for assists.
*Edwards' 3,765 career minutes rank No. 7 in school history.
*Tyree Griffin broke the single-season assists record, finishing the year with 233. His 201 last season also ranks No. 3 in school history, and he finished his career third despite playing just two years.
*Griffin and Edwards hold four of the top-five single-season steals marks in program history, all from 2017-19.
*Griffin and Edwards also earned All-Conference USA Second-Team honors.
*Griffin's 15 assists against Marshall were the most by anyone C-USA game since 1998, and set a Southern Miss single-game record against a Division I team.
*Griffin ranks No. 5 in the nation with 7.1 assists per game.
*LaDavius Draine became the first-ever Golden Eagle to earn C-USA Sixth-Player of the Year honors. He finished the season with a school-record 46.4 three-point percentage, besting Casey Fisher (1987-88) by one-tenth of a point. Draine's 78 three-pointers were 35 more than the next-closest sophomore in school history.
*Kevin Holland finished his career with 109 starts, all consecutive, to rank No. 5 all-time at the school. He was also named to Conference USA's All-Academic Team with a 3.77 overall GPA from his undergrad and graduate tenure. He will earn his Master's in Sport Management in May.
*Holland's 137 career three-pointers rank No. 7 in school history.
*Leonard Harper-Baker, in his first season at Southern Miss, ranked No. 3 in C-USA play for both field goal percentage (58.2) and rebounding (8.9 per game).
*Harper-Baker also averaged 16.5 points and 14.5 rebounds from Jan. 24-26 against WKU and Marshall to earn C-USA Player of the Week honors, and it came off a 14-rebound game at ODU on Jan. 19. The 29-combined boards over two games marked the most by a Golden Eagle since Charles Gaines in 2004.
