UAB Falls Short at Southern Miss, 73-68

Saturday, January 12

Hattiesburg, Miss.

4 p.m.

UAB

-107, 22 CUSA

Southern Miss

-107, 23 CUSA

UAB

Southern Miss

UAB Falls Short at Southern Miss, 73-68

1/12/2019 6:48:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Season Statistics

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – In a game that featured 28 lead changes and 14 ties, the UAB men's basketball team dropped a heartbreaker to Southern Miss 73-68 on Saturday afternoon at Reed Green Coliseum.

The Blazers (10-7, 2-2 C-USA) took a 2-point lead (68-66) with a minute to go, but Southern Miss regained the advantage on a 3-pointer from LaDavius Draine and gave USM a lead it would not relinquish.

Down 70-68 with 13 seconds remaining, the Blazers had a chance to tie or take the lead, but Southern Miss' full-court press caused one of UAB's five turnovers of the game which the Golden Eagles turned into a three-point-play to make the final score 73-68.

Lewis Sullivan led three Blazers in double figure with a team-high 14 points on 7-of-10 shooting to go along with nine rebounds. Makhatar Gueye and Jalen Perry each added 12 points, while Zack Bryant finished with nine points six assists.

Southern Miss (10-7, 2-3 C-USA) also had three players in double figures, led by Draine with 19 points behind 5-of-8 from 3-point range. Cortez Edwards added 18 and Leonard Harper-Baker had 17 points and 10 rebounds.

The first half had 14 of those 28 lead changes as Southern Miss took a 1-point advantage into the break, 33-32.

The Blazers had eight players score in the first half and were paced by Jeremiah Bell with eight. UAB shot 37.1 percent (13-of-35) in the opening 20 minutes.

Gueye led the charge out of the locker room with 10 points in the first eight minutes as the two teams traded buckets back and forth.

UAB's largest second half lead reached five points at 56-51 after a Sullivan jumper with 9:22 left forced a Southern Miss timeout. Out of that timeout though, the Golden Eagles went on an 8-0 run to regain the lead at 59-56 at the under-8 media timeout.

From there, neither team would have more than a 3-point lead for the remainder of the game, and Bryant's driving layup with 59 seconds to go moved UAB ahead 68-66. However, USM finished the game on a 7-0 run to secure the victory.

UAB shot 41.8 percent for the game and made five more shots that Southern Miss, but the Golden Eagles were 11-of-26 from behind the arc which proved to be the difference in the game.

UAB returns home this coming weekend for games against UTEP (Jan. 17) and UTSA (Jan. 19). Both contests tip at 7 p.m. inside Bartow Arena. Click here for tickets.