Southern Miss was hot and the UH women’s basketball team was not.
The Golden Eagles (11-7, 4-1 Conference USA) used a scorching 48.4 percent shooting performance to top the Cougars (11-6, 3-2) 74-65 at Reed Green Coliseum on Thursday, knocking UH out of a tie for first place in C-USA.
‘They were more physical than us,’ UH head coach Joe Curl said. ‘They shot lights out, (so) it was a combination of those (things).’
Southern Miss carried a 43-31 advantage into halftime, and stretched its lead to 54-39 with 15:05 left in the second half. UH played effective defense to start the second half, but it was dominated on the boards and gave the Golden Eagles too many second-chance opportunities.
‘We didn’t compete with any physicality,’ Curl said. ‘You can’t do that against a team that’s as big and strong as they are.’
The Cougars finally showed signs of life when they used an 8-0 run, capped off by a hook shot by sophomore center Cobilyn Hill, to cut the Golden Eagles’ lead to 54-47 with 12:06 left.
‘Once we did (what we needed to do) in the second half, we came right back on them,’ Curl said.
After a Southern Miss timeout, UH had two opportunities to close the gap further, but it was unable to execute on the offensive end.
Southern Miss survived the Cougars’ push, and went on an 11-2 run to push its lead to 65-49 with 6:51 left. This run effectively put the game away.
‘The game really came down to a couple of quick things,’ Curl said. ‘They were very physical, and we struggled to get them to miss shots.’
The Cougars worked so hard to climb back into the game that they may have ran out of energy when they needed it most.
Curl said the long road trip could have affected his players, but refused to use that as an excuse.
‘That’s possible, but I don’t think that was the real reason,’ Curl said. ‘(Southern Miss) came out and hit a shot, got a steal and hit another shot. I’m proud of our kids. They played really hard.’
UH was unable to recover from a nearly flawless first-half performance by the Golden Eagles. In that half, Southern Miss shot 56.7 percent and was perfect from behind the 3-point and free-throw lines.
The Golden Eagles used their size and strength to out-rebound the Cougars 21-12 in the opening stanza.
One positive note for UH was junior forward Ashlee’ Joseph, who scored a season-high 16 points on 8-13 shooting to lead the Cougars.
‘Ashlee’ stepped up and played as well as she has played,’ Curl said. ‘We need her to continue to do that.’
Three players recorded double-doubles for Southern Miss, including junior forward Pauline Love, who had 20 points and 18 rebounds to pace the Golden Eagles.
Junior center Stephanie Helgeson added 14 points and 10 rebounds, and senior guard Andrea Barber dished out 13 assists and scored 12 points.
The Cougars will try to bounce back and maintain their undefeated home record when they host Central Florida (6-12, 4-1), another C-USA frontrunner, at 2 p.m. Sunday at Hofheinz Pavilion.
