Golden Eagles remain undefeated after win at Sam Houston State

The Golden Eagles men’s basketball team is undefeated after its first three games after beating Sam Houston State, 61-49, in the Progressive Legends Classic Sub-Regional in Huntsville, Tex., Monday night.

Dwayne Davis scored 27 points, the most by a Golden Eagle this season and Jonathan Mills added 12 points and 10 rebounds. The Eagles led by as much as 15 in the first half, but held off the Bearkats to take a 34-28 lead into the break. Sam Houston cut the Eagles’lead to five points several times in the second half, but the Eagles fought back each time to extend their lead.

They play the UC-Irvine Anteaters today at 5 p.m., in the three-team, round-robin tournament in Huntsville. The Eagles will play the Liberty Flames at 5 p.m., Wednesday to finish the Legends Classic.

Last Thursday, the Southern Miss men’s basketball team required overtime to secure a win for the second time in their first two games. The Golden Eagles came away with the victory 62-60 against the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens, Ga., in the opening round of the Legends Classic.  

Despite Georgia scoring the first points of the game on a three-point shot by Vincent Williams, Southern Miss scored 18 of the next 22 points to jump out to an early 18-7 lead.

It looked as if the Eagles would go into the half with a seven-point lead, but a near-half court desperation shot at the buzzer went in for the Bulldogs, cutting the score to 31-27.

Georgia fought the entire second half to catch up to Southern Miss. The Bulldogs would come within two points of tying the game twice, and both times they got the score within one point, before Southern Miss went on a 6-0 run with 4:30 to play. Southern Miss would fail to score again in the second half, while Georgia would eventually tie the game to send it into overtime.

Georgia got off to a quick start in overtime, jumping out to an early lead. The teams would switch baskets through the period, however, leading to a time game with less than a minute to play.

With the Bulldogs attempting to run an offensive play, Michael Craig stepped in front of a pass and tipped the ball to Dwayne Davis for the game winning lay-up.

“I thought our guys played extremely hard,” Southern Miss head coach Donnie Tyndall said. “It didn’t look like things were going our way in overtime, but we got critical stops when we needed to, and Michael Craig made a great play to tip the ball to Dwayne for the winning basket.”

Davis recorded the first double-double of his career with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Jerrold Brooks scored a game-high 17 points, while shooting 50 percent from behind the arc.

As a team, Southern Miss shot 51 percent from the field and just under 39 percent from three point range. Georgia shot just 38.5 percent from the field and 30 percent from behind the arc. Southern Miss controlled the boards, out-rebounding the Bulldogs, 36-27.