Raiders battle but come up just short at USM

Saturday, January 16

Hattiesburg, MS

4:00 PM

Middle Tennessee

-37,13 CUSA

Southern Miss

-76,33 CUSA

Middle Tennessee

Southern Miss.

1/16/2021 6:31:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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By: @MTAthletics

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Middle Tennessee battled back after a disappointing performance on Friday night, fighting every second of the way Saturday afternoon before dropping a heartbreaking 64-59 loss in Hattiesburg.

MT clamped down on defense after giving up a season-high 84 points the day before, but continued to suffer from shooting woes on the road. The Blue Raiders finished the night 21 of 58 (.362) from the field and 6 of 26 (.231) from beyond the arc.

"I really liked our toughness and our bounce back from yesterday," Head Coach Nick McDevitt said. "Sometimes you can let a loss like yesterday's effect you today and give you no chance, but our guys didn't lay down. I thought we were getting quality looks for a lot of different guys and we just couldn't get open looks to fall in this one."

A lackluster start hampered the Blue Raiders again on Saturday, as they would huddle at the first media timeout with four turnovers already in the box score and an early 4-point deficit on the scoreboard.

Down 15-8 just a few minutes later, MT's offense finally hit a little bit of a rhythm as a 6-0 run closed the gap to one just before returning to the bench for another media break. That momentum gave MT just enough to stay in the game early despite continued shooting struggles.

With the offense still not coming through at a high level, it was on the Blue Raider defense to make a difference in game two that wasn't there in game one and that's exactly what it did.

"We came out much more aggressive on the defensive end tonight," McDevitt stated. "Last night we only fouled five times and really only three of those came on the defensive end. I don't want to be out there just fouling, but that just goes to show how different our defensive intensity was in game two."

As halftime approached the Raiders were able to hold USM scoreless for a span of four minutes and momentarily took a 1-point lead, but the Golden Eagles collected the last five points of the half to go into the locker room up 28-24.

After the break the offense continued to ramp up, as 13 Blue Raider points in the first five minutes of the second half put MT up 37-36 in Reed-Green Coliseum.

The two teams traded blows for over 10 minutes before the Golden Eagles finally landed a punch that would extend their lead back to five for the first time since the 16:50 mark of the second half.

However, MT answered almost immediately with a Jalen Jordan trifecta that sent the contest to its final media timeout with the road Raiders trailing 53-51.

McDevitt sent his squad back to the floor with a play drawn up that resulted in a bucket by DeAndre Dishman that tied the game up with 3:13 to go.

Southern Miss would take back control of the scoreboard, but not without a fight from the Blue Raiders. For nearly every bucket from a gold jersey, a bucket from a white jersey matched it.

It came down to the final moments as Jo'Vontae Millner-Criss drained a triple with 16.2 seconds remaining, and down by two the Blue Raiders were in search of a clutch play.

On the ensuing inbound pass Jordan Davis nearly swiped the ball to turn his team's fortunes, but it was instead a foul call that would send the Golden Eagles to the charity stripe for a pair of freebies.

Middle Tennessee had two attempts from beyond the arc on their final trip down the floor, but with neither finding the bottom of the net it was the home team that would once again claim the win in the back-to-back series.

"I told our guys in the locker room after the game that I'm disappointed in the outcome, but I'm absolutely not disappointed in their response to yesterday's game with their fight today. They played with enough energy to win the game today, we just didn't quite get it done."

Jalen Jordan led the way for MT in the low-scoring affair with 14 points and six rebounds. Starting post players DeAndre Dishman and Jo'Vontae Millner-Criss each pitched in with 10 apiece as the trio accounted for nearly 60 percent of MT's points on the evening.

The Blue Raiders play host to WKU next weekend, with Saturday's game tipping at 4:00 p.m. on ESPN+ before the two rivals go at it again Sunday at 1:00 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.