Eagle seniors sent out winners

Southern Miss coach Larry Eustachy has been employing some different motivational tools to get his team to play inspired basketball as of late.

He's shuffled the lineup, giving players like LeVanne Pennington more playing time, and he's sat  guys that have started games in the past for almost entire games.

On Tuesday night, he sent in substitutes for all five offensive starters just two and a half minutes into the game after the team fell behind Tulane 7-2.

Whatever he was thinking when he made the move, it worked.

Maurice Bolden and Gary Flowers both earned double-doubles and Southern Mississippi defeated rival Tulane 66-57 Tuesday night.

"Tim Floyd did it with the Chicago Bulls with Charles Oakley and Oakley never lived it down," Eustachy said. "Oakley said, ‘This isn't college, you don't do that in the pros.' I hadn't done that since God knows when. I wanted to make a point that (Tulane) was coming out more hard and determined and we weren't. I thought that was a key factor in the game."

Flowers scored 16 and grabbed 11 rebounds, and Bolden added 16 and grabbed 12 boards.

Flowers grabbed his final offensive rebound and put it back to give Southern Miss an 11-point lead with three minutes remaining, but Tulane responded with a 19-12
run to cut the lead to five with 30 seconds left.

Southern Miss (17-12) made all four of its free throw attempts on its last to possessions to put the game away.

"I thought it was a great win," USM coach Larry Eustachy said. "We've struggled in these kinds of games with the likes of Central Florida, Canisius and North Florida.
It's easy to get up for UTEP. Our guys aren't stupid. They look at the standings. It's tough to convince a young group of guys."

The Golden Eagles held the edge in the paint 24-20, had 20 points off of put-backs to Tulane's 5 and won the rebounding battle 44-25.

"I think our last three or four games we've won the rebounding battle," Flowers said. "We always stress that. We've got a theory with the guards, no matter how many you miss, our guys will go get it. That's what we pride ourselves on."

Tulane led for nearly 18 minutes in the first half, but lost the lead on a Flowers jumper from the key with 1:47 left and never retook the lead in the second half.

The Green Wave made 40 percent (20 of 50) of their shots in the game, good enough to top Southern Miss (18 of 51), but the Golden Eagles made 28 of 36 free throws to Tulane's 9 of 12.

Flowers and Bolden both made 8 of 10 from the line.

Jordan Callahan led the Green Wave with 16 points, and Kendall Timmons and Kris Richard both added 10.

The Golden Eagle bench accounted for 21 points to Tulane's 10, but no Southern Miss senior scored a point despite the teams' celebration of senior night.

Southern Miss completed the season sweep of Tulane. They out-rebounded the Green Wave 44-19 in the two teams' first meeting on Jan. 30, a 58-40 win for the Golden Eagles.

"One of my favorite coaches told me ‘Any time you get 17 wins, you've had a heck of a year,'" Eustachy said. "So we've had a heck of a year. We need a couple of more to get into one of these postseason tournaments. The urgency is there."

Southern Miss wraps up the regular season with a trip to Greenville, N.C. to take on East Carolina Saturday at 6 p.m.