Tulane University
Southern Miss
Green Wave Shooting Woes Continue in 58-40 Loss to Southern Miss
Jan 30, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2010
NEW ORLEANS - The shooting woes of the Tulane men's basketball continued Saturday night in a 58-40 loss to Conference USA rival Southern Miss in Fogelman Arena.
Neither team shot the ball well as the Green Wave (6-14, 1-6 C-USA) connected on 11 of 39 field goal attempts for 28.2 percent and hit just four of 21 shots from 3-point range, while Southern Miss (12-8, 2-4 C-USA) shot 37.0 percent from the floor and hit three of 10 from 3-point range.
The loss was the fourth straight for Tulane, while Southern Miss won the second straight time.
The difference in the game was the rebounding totals as the Golden Eagles grabbed 44 boards to Tulane's 19. USM also turned 16 offensive rebounds into 18 second chance points, while the Green Wave pulled down just five offensive rebounds that converted into one second chance point.
"Give credit to Southern Miss," Tulane head coach Dave Dickerson said. "They did what it took to win the game. Neither Southern Miss nor Tulane are high scoring teams so in order to win this game somebody had to step up and be the tougher team and they were the toughest team tonight. Getting outrebounded 44-19 is just un-basketball like. I've never been in a situation where we got outrebounded by so many especially at home."
It took more than two minutes for either team to score to open the game and USM struck first, hitting a pair of free throws off the hands of Sai'Quan Stone with 16:21 remaining in the half. Stone hit a jumper less than a minute later that gave the Golden Eagles a 4-0 before Jordan Callahan's 3-pointer with 15:00 remaining put the Green Wave on the board.
A Kendall Timmons 3-pointer gave Tulane a short-lived 6-4 lead with 14:22 left in the half, before Southern Miss retook the lead with a jumper by Maurice Bolden. The Golden Eagles never relinquished the lead.
USM led 23-16 at the half and built a double digit lead early in the second half before Tulane was able to trim the lead down to seven four times in the second half. The first came after Callahan's second 3-pointer of the game with 7:17 remaining to cut the lead to 37-30. USM then built a 10-point lead again before a free throw from Asim McQueen and a jumper my Kris Richard cut the lead back to seven with 3:40 remaining. The Golden Eagles then proceeded to finish the game scoring 14 of the final 17 points, 10 of which came from the free throw line.
Callahan led Tulane with a career-high 12 points on five of seven shooting, including a pair of 3-pointers. Richard added 11 points, while Timmons finished with eight. McQueen led the Green Wave with five rebounds.
Angelo Johnson led USM with 20 points, 13 of which came from the free throw line, while Buchi Awaji added 13 points off the bench. Gary Flowers led the Golden Eagles with 10 of the team's 44 rebounds.
"This is a frustrating stretch that we are going through. What I told our team is `The biggest thing that we have to do now is stay positive, continue to work hard and continue to try and get better. Hopefully we can do that in the next 72 hours because we have to play a Rice team on their home court that we beat here and I am pretty sure they are going to come after us hard."
Tulane travels to Houston on Wednesday to battle Rice at 7 p.m. CST.
GAME NOTES
- Junior guard Aaron Holmes returned to action with 1:37 remaining in the first half. His first game action after missing five games with an injured right wrist. Holmes had stated 13 games this season prior to his injury and is averaging 7.3 points and 3.5 rebounds in 22.7 minutes per game.
- Tulane's 6-4 lead with 14:11 remaining in the first half was the Green Wave's first lead since the end of the Rice game on Jan. 13th, a span three plus games.
- Jordan Callahan's 12 points tonight marked a career-high for the freshman guard. This marks his first double figure scoring game of his career.
- Kris Richard scored in double figures for the 15th time this season and the 33rd game of his career with his 11 points today.
