Southern Miss basketball’s offense is back on track. Now the wins are following

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss basketball scored 83 points on Northwestern State on Saturday, but it sure didn’t feel like an open shooting practice.

Instead, it was a physical matchup that got chippy in the second half rather than one with lots of finesse.

Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner said after the 83-74 win at Reed Green Coliseum that the former was closer than the latter to the Golden Eagles' desired identity. Couple that with efficient scoring, and it could be the formula to another Sun Belt Conference championship.

That's the path the Golden Eagles (5-4) are on as of late, finally getting their shots to fall. And now, they are winners of three in a row after a 2-4 start to the season.

Concerns entering the season come to fruition

Ladner and associate head coach Juan Cardona have both admitted they had a sense that there could be growing pains with this season’s team – particularly on offense. Southern Miss lost three of its top four scorers from last season’s Sun Belt regular-season championship team in Felipe Haase, DeAndre Pinckney and Denijay Harris.

Add in guard Neftali Alvarez, who remains out with a foot injury, and that’s four of the top five scorers that aren’t on the floor. Plus, Andre Curbelo was supposed to be an impactful distributor, but still has not had his eligibility waiver approved by the NCAA. Those are challenging circumstances for any team.

“That’s changed us a little bit,” Ladner said. “But, we’re finding a way to be successful without those guys and hopefully we will hear something soon with Andre and the same with Nefta.”

Austin Crowley, the conference Preseason Player of the Year, has been tasked with carrying the load, but has been extremely streaky through nine games. He shot 3-of-11 from the field on Saturday for 10 points.

Mix that all together and out comes an offense that’s scoring 70.9 points per game at 42.6% from the field, both in the bottom two-thirds of the country.

“We still got a new team,” forward Victor Iwuakor said. “We have half the guys or whatever from last year, but we still – including me, including Cobie (Montgomery) – it’s our first year actually playing a game with them."

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Southern Miss' shots starting to fall

The encouraging part though is that Southern Miss is beginning to shoot the ball much better. And it’s turning into wins.

The Golden Eagles didn’t shoot above 43.3% in their first six games of the season and hit a maddening low of 29.1% in a 65-54 home loss to South Dakota State on Nov. 22.

But since that point, Southern Miss is shooting 51.1% across its last three games. It’s led to road wins at Milwaukee and UAB, and now against Northwestern State.

Southern Miss said not much has changed behind the curtain, other than a stronger emphasis on ball movement and shot selection.

“We was stagnant with the ball in the past games and not really sharing it as much,” guard Cobie Montgomery said. “A lot of shots was within two people, but now, as you can see, it’s like four or five of us getting over double-digit points or putting up points on the board.”

It resulted Saturday in a season-high 19 team assists. Iwuakor and Montgomery combined for 35 points off the bench, a career-high 18 for Iwuakor and season-high 17 for Montgomery.

Southern Miss is 2-0 when it shoots above 50% from the field and 3-4 when it shoots below 50%. It shot 49.2% against Northwestern State. Southern Miss is also 5-0 when it shoots a higher percentage from the floor than its opponent.

And, the Golden Eagles are also 4-0 in games in which they score at least 68 points.

Reach 68 points, and that might be the recipe for another run at a conference championship.

“I was glad to maybe not have our best effort and still be able to survive today,” Ladner said.

Sam Sklar is the Southern Miss beat reporter for the Hattiesburg American. Email him at ssklar@hattiesb.gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.

This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Southern Miss basketball's offense at front of 3-game winning streak