A late rally by the Southern Miss (4-7) men’s basketball team fell short on Tuesday night as Lamar (6-5) bested the Golden Eagles 69-65. The loss marked Southern Miss’ first defeat at home this season.
Scoring summary
The Golden Eagles started on a high note as Cobie Montgomery logged a two-handed dunk to get his team on the board. The dunk fired up the home crowd, but Lamar was not intimidated. The Cardinals answered with a quick five points to pull ahead shortly after. However, Southern Miss responded with another 5-0 run that featured a three-pointer from Neftali Alvarez. The bucket put the Golden Eagles ahead by two with 15:59 left in the first half.
Lamar regained control of the game and held the lead for the next 11 minutes. Trailing by seven, DeAntoni Gordon started a 12-0 that flipped the score in favor of Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles went ahead by five after Gordon hit a pair of free throws with 3:11 left in the half. Following this, Lamar ripped off a 10-0 run to close the half and carry a 36-31 advantage into halftime.
The Cardinals built a 12-point lead seven minutes into the half before the Golden Eagles finally found some rhythm. Christian Watson and Montgomery combined for a 6-0 run that saw the Lamar lead plummet to six.
Then, Denijay Harris started to take over as the Arkansas transfer scored nine of Southern Miss’ next 11 points to make it a two-point game with five minutes to play. The Cardinals never let Southern Miss surpass them on the scoreboard and maintained a one-score buffer the rest of the way The Golden Eagles managed one final push, but a Lamar free throw and an Andrew Holifield dunk off a turnover sealed the win for the visitors.
What the coach said
Southern Miss frontman Jay Ladner was not excited about the performance, even though he felt Lamar was a much better team than they have been in the past.
“Losing is not fun, I will tell you that. I really like Coach (Alvin) Brooks at Lamar as he has done a great job, but I thought we didn’t play consistently or smart enough,” Ladner said. “We looked great in the fast break, but a play here and play there, and we didn’t execute very well. The preliminaries are over now and we have a strong conference game coming up.”
Numbers never lie
Point guard Neftali Alvarez led all scorers with 21 points, while Harris picked up a 15-point, 12-rebound performance for a double-double. Alvarez also went for seven assists as Harris had a career-high four blocks. Gordon finished with 14 points.
Next up
The Golden Eagles return to Reed Green Coliseum on Saturday against Marshall. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. on ESPN+.
