The Opener...Southern Mississippi

MBB hits the road to open the season, heading down to Hattiesburg, MS to play Southern Mississippi in the road swing of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge, which I love.  The other game will be at the Stroh and will be determined by the standings in order to engineer competitive matchups.

Southern Miss athletic alumni include Hall of Famers Brett Farve and Ray Guy. Not so much on the basketball side.  Wendell Ladner, the father of the current coach, was all-ABA rookie.  There was a Clarence Weatherspoon who played a few years in the NBA.

They have been to the NCAA tournament three times, the last time in 2013, a season that vaulted Larry Eustachy on to Iowa State.  Things went bad when they hired Donnie Tyndall, who coached two spectacular years there when it was revealed, among other things, that he had staff doing coursework for the players.  The NCAA called it "audacious." Those two years were vacated and he lost his job at Tennessee.

Today, he coaches at Chipola JC...where Chris Jans once coached and incoming Falcon Derrick Butler played.

I digress.

They moved to the Sun Belt two years ago.  They won the regular season title that year, and then last year had a super rough year.  PG Neftali Alvarez broke his foot in the pre-season and was out for the year.  Andre Curbelo, Illinois/St. John's transfer, was finally made eligible and then had a concussion and did not contribute meaningfully again.

Also, their head coach suffered a heart attack on February 6 and did not have a meaningful role for the remainder of the year.

So, a tough year.  They are back this year.  They were picked 5th in the official pre-season poll and 4th by Blue Ribbon.

They have played two exhibition games--against low-D1 New Orleans (they won 105-102) and Jackson State (also won, 92-85 in OT).  They were down 19 to Jackson State with 15 left to play before rallying. Neither of these are great signs for the team gelling early in the year.

They played a pretty straight 7-man rotation against Jackson State.  The players included:

Andre Curbelo...as mentioned, two-time transfer.  Plays internationally for Puerto Rico. He is 3rd-team All Sun Belt pre-season.  Had 29 points, 6 rebounds and 4 steals vs. Jackson State.  He is 6'0".  Drew 11 fouls in that game.

Denijay Harris was their other leading player.  He's 6'7" and NOT A TRANSFER. He had 25 points, 13 rebounds and made 9 of 14 2FGs. He's in his sixth year.

Christian Watson had 15 points and 8 boards.  He's 6'6" and was highly recruited before going to The Other Miami and playing sparingly for the Final Four team.

DeAntoni Green and 10 points and 7 rebounds. He is 6'6" and was All-OVC at Little Rock.  Has played 91 games.

Neftali Alvarez, coming off that broken foot, struggled in the Jackson State game. Playing his 7th season of college ball.

Cobie Montgomery is a 6'4" G and came off the bench. Hit 34% from 3FG.

Alfred Worrell, JR. Played about 10 minutes. Big 3FG shooter in JUCO.

This is an OLD team.  Of the 7 players I listed above, 5 of them are listed as R-SR or Grad Students and 2 are juniors/

Kenpom gives them a pretty good home court advantage at 3.3 points, #101 in the country.  BG's is 3.

Last year, they lost @Akron to kick off the challenge and then destroyed WMU in the home game, illustrating how much their fortunes faded over the season.

ESPN gives the Golden Eagles a 72% chance of winning.  I don't see a point spread.  Having said that, given a slow Southern Miss start, I think BG has a better shot than that, while being an underdog on the road is expected.