The Southern Miss Golden Eagles lost 18 straight games to the Memphis Tigers, including a number of heartbreakingly close losses in recent years. But they finally got the Memphis monkey off their backs with a 75-72 victory last night in Hattiesburg, Miss.
Chris Crawford's career-high 23 points and Will Barton's 15 weren't enough to take down a Southern Miss team determined to finally end their long, tormented run against Memphis. Joe Jackson added 14 and Antonio Barton scored 10.
The Tigers got off to a bright start, opening a 16-4 lead early on, but five quick points pulled the Golden Eagles back into the game, and it was close ever since.
After Southern Miss hit two free throws to go up by four with 37 seconds remaining, Jackson went coast-to-coast for a layup, cutting the lead down to two. He then stole the ball on the inbound play and was fouled, giving him a chance to tie it at the free throw line.
He made his first, but missed the second. Wesley Witherspoon went up to tip it in, but it wouldn't fall and the Tigers were forced to foul, leading to two more successful free throws by the Golden Eagles. Jackson found D.J. Stephens down low for a dunk with less than 20 seconds left and then had to foul once again with 8.3 seconds left.
Former Memphis commit Darnell Dodson calmly stepped to the line and hit both shots before Crawford's potential game-tying three-pointer missed as time expired, handing the Golden Eagles their first win over the Tigers since Jan. 10, 2004.
"All you can ask for is opportunities to either tie or win the game," head coach Josh Pastner said. "We had opportunities—we just didn't convert—didn't take care of business on a couple opportunities and we couldn't get some stops late."
Free throws made a big difference in this game, with Southern Miss getting to the line ten more times and making 11 more than Memphis. The Tigers also missed the front ends of one-and-ones a few times, depriving them of extra free throws.
"The biggest thing is they made free throws," Pastner said. "You've got to give them credit. We put pressure on them and they stepped up and made free throws down the stretch. We lost the game on some little things. We didn't do the job on a couple of little things and that came back to bite us in the butt."
Memphis outshot Southern Miss 56.3 percent to 41.1 percent, but was dominated by the Eagles on the glass. Southern Miss outrebounded the Tigers by 13, 36-23, and pulled down 16 offensive rebounds to just three for Memphis. Southern Miss scored 13 second-chance points and limited the Tigers to just five.
Memphis falls to 15-7 (6-2 C-USA) on the season, while Southern Miss improves to 20-3 (7-1) and takes sole possession of first place in the conference.
"We've just got to do our job," Pastner said. "No need to hit the panic button. We've just got to come out Saturday and regroup and get a ‘W.'"
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