Women's basketball falls short in comeback attempt against Memphis

The Southern Miss women’s basketball team fell at Memphis on Sunday afternoon by a score of 63-57. The loss snapped the Lady Eagles win streak of four games.

While the Lady Eagles played in impressive second half, their first half effort created too large of a margin to comeback.

"I felt like we were confident coming out of the locker room. We had to make some defensive adjustments. We talked about offensive flow and playing with intensity. I think we did a much better job in the second half. We can't play one half of basketball. Right now, we're only playing a half. We won the second half," head coach Joye Lee-McNelis told Southernmiss.com.

USM, led by Tenecka Carey and Jerontay Clemons, started the second half on a 19-4 run over the first 6:30.

The Tigers then pushed the lead back to eight. The teams traded baskets before Carey hit a three to cut the Memphis lead to four.

Memphis then hit a three, followed by a basket by each team to get the score to 63-57. Neither team would score again in the final minute.

After the game, McNelis addressed the Lady Eagles’ problem of starting slow.

"We have struggled coming out of the starting blocks these last few games," McNelis said. "We did it again today. We didn't get back in transition defense, we didn't execute like we should gave on either end. We just didn't get into a flow during the first half.”

Carey led the Eagles with 21 points and 7 rebounds. Clemmons also added 15 points and five steals.

Ariel Hearn led the Tigers with 17 points.

Memphis held a 47-31 advantage in rebounds.

Southern Miss (9-6, 1-1) returns home to take on SMU this Thursday at 7 p.m.