Eagles soar to the top with win over Marshall

The atmosphere was electric in the Green House as the Southern Miss Golden Eagles played host to the Marshall Thundering Herd on Saturday. The Golden Eagles entered the game boasting a 16-3 record overall and 3-1 in C-USA play, while Marshall's record stood at 13-5 overall and an impressive 4-0 in C-USA. There were major post season implications for both teams as the battle for conference supremacy. Both teams have hopes and expectations of making it to the NCAA Tournament this season. Also, with a match-up with Memphis looming just over the horizon on Feb. 1 in the Green House, a win over Marshall created some big momentum for the Eagles as they looked to avenge their 60-58 last second loss in Memphis.  

The Eagles started to pull away toward the end of the first half, putting distance between them and their counterparts from Huntington, W.Va. The crowd erupted after Maurice Bolden swatted away a dunk attempt by Marshall.  

The score was 42-30 at the half. LaShay Page led the Eagles with 15 first half points and going 5-8 from the field in the first half.

The Eagles got off to a slow start in the second half but quickly heated up after letting Marshall creep back in the game, shortening the Eagle lead down to 47-40. Marshall tried to make a push to get something started, but Neil Watson knocked down a dagger from three, putting USM ahead 56-45. With eight minutes left in the game, Torye Pelham smashed a devastating block, rejecting the Marshall lay-up attempt into the stands.

Down the stretch, Marshall fought back into the game, but Watson threw a three pointer from the wing with less than 20 seconds on the clock. The Eagles sealed the victory with defensive rebounds on back-to-back Marshall possessions by Jonathan Mills. This was the first C-USA loss for Marshall on the season and put two teams in a three way logjam atop the conference with UCF. USM managed to pull off the win after struggling in the second half, but the final score had the Eagles on top 67-63.  The Eagles are a perfect 10-0 at home this year.  Southern Miss shot 21-51 (41.2%) while Marshall shot only 23-59 (39.0%).

Golden Eagle Head Coach Larry Eustachy was very positive after the game and happy with the team's performance.

"It's huge," Eustachy said. "It's the biggest win we've had since I've been here. East Carolina will become an even bigger game. It's a huge win. If we don't win this game, this league is misleading. With the new plus-minus system, if we'd lost it would've put us as even and them at plus three, and it would've been insurmountable to get where we are trying to get. This was a must win in the given situation."

Watson racked up 10 of his 18 points in the second half and went five of nine from deep. Watson provided the knockout blow with a three pointer with only seconds left. Watson has struggled as of late in situations late in the game taking the big shot, but he didn't look nervous against Marshall.

"Normally I kind of shy away from it," Watson said. "But I'm not shy to a big shot, if I can help the team, I'm going to help the team."

This marks the second straight loss for the Herd after winning four in a row before Thursday night's loss against the West Virginia Mountaineers. Darnell Dodson led the Eagles in points with 18 on the night, while DeAndre Kane led Marshall with 21. The Eagles return to action this Wednesday at East Carolina and won't return home until Feb. 1 against the Memphis Tigers. Before returning home, the Eagles will spend next week on the road with stops at East Carolina and UCF before returning to the Green House. Hopefully the team will be able to carry the momentum from beating Marshall with them until they get home.

"It was a very big win," Watson said. "Coming into the game, Marshall was the number one team, and we came in and we've been very underrated all season so we had something to prove and we were playing with a monkey on our back this game."