Eustachy “excited” about season

With the first regular season game just over one week away, the Southern Miss basketball team held its annual media day Friday morning at Reed Green Coliseum.

“I’m as excited as I’ve been,” Golden Eagle head coach Larry Eustachy said. “I’ve never worked harder in between seasons, and I’ve never had a staff work harder. I don’t like losing and never have.”

The fifth-year head coach said that recruiting had picked up since the addition of the new locker rooms, team meeting room and player and coach’s lounges.

“What we need to accomplish this year is getting a good firm base with this new team,” Eustachy said. “We’ll take our lumps, but I think by the end of the year, we’ll be one of the elite teams in this conference. Then if we can get another strong recruiting class in, you’ll see the results in the polls probably next year and then it’s off to the races.”

Building for the future may be on Eustachy’s mind, but for players like junior shooting guard R.L. Horton, the 2009-2010 season is all that matters right now.

“We’re just trying to work as hard as we can to get ready,” Horton said. “There’s no way to judge how we’ll play until we get on the court against another opponent, but everyone is starting to accept their role and we’re ready to play.”

The Eagles have five more days of practice to get ready before heading to Lafayette, La. to take on the UL-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns.

“They are the most talented team in Louisiana,” Eustachy said. “And if you don’t believe me ask LSU’s coach (Trent Johnson), because he’s the person who told me that.

“I think this will be a good first game to kind of see where we are in our progression. We have to be guarded against high expectations, because I don’t want to set these guys up for a letdown, but this is a critical year.”

The road schedule doesn’t get any easier from there, with road games at Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, two teams that are getting top 25 votes in national polls going into the season, and six of the team’s first eight Conference USA games on the road.

“Man, it’s brutal,” Horton said. “We finally got some players in here and they hand us a schedule like that, it’s rough but what are you going to do?”

Southern Miss guard and forward Torye Pelham, a Chipola Junior College transfer, said he’s fitting right in at Southern Miss and is looking forward to a big season.

“Transitioning to a university from JUCO hasn’t been difficult,” Pelham said. “It’s a big transition, but if we don’t understand a scheme or something we have coach (Greg) Haier to help explain it. The main difference is here you have to be somewhere all the time, whether it’s practice or meetings or whatever.”

Flowers and Pelham went 69-4 at Chipola Junior College.

“I think we bring a different attitude,” Flowers said. “We’re used to winning and it’s starting to rub off.”