Red hot Louisville pays USM a visit

By By Stan Caldwell / EMG Sports Writer
Jan. 29, 2003
HATTIESBURG It will be a case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire for the University of Southern Mississippi men's basketball team.
Fresh from a disappointing 76-75 loss to Houston this past Saturday at Biloxi, the Golden Eagles return to Reed Green Coliseum to take on ninth-ranked Louisville in a Conference USA game on Wednesday. Tipoff is at 7 p.m.
things about some individual plays and the general flow of our team."
Saturday's loss was USM's third straight, dropping the Golden Eagles to 9-7 overall and 2-3 in C-USA. As has happened too often this season, the
Eagles were unable to put a complete game together against the Cougars.
play is critical between winning and losing. I think Saturday's game will help us understand that."
Against Houston, USM played terrific in the early stretches of the game, and terrific at the end. But in between, from the final nine minutes of the first half through the first 13 minutes of the second half, the Eagles were terrible.
During that stretch, the Cougars turned a 13-point USM lead into a 15-point deficit before the Eagles rallied down the stretch.
And, not coincidentally, that was by far USM's best game of the season, an 84-67 thumping of the Tigers. It was also USM's last game at Green Coliseum, and the last time the Golden Eagles won a game.
A three-game losing streak comes at a bad time for USM, for Louisville comes into Wednesday's game on a huge roll. In the second year of head coach Rick Pitino's reclamation project at UL, the Cardinals are 14-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference.
to put 40 minutes together to beat them. But we did against Memphis, so we know we can do it."
Louisville has won 13 straight games in marching up the rankings. The Cards' last win was a 72-68 non-conference win over Tennessee at Knoxville on Saturday in which they overcame an 11-point second half deficit.
As is typical of the teams Pitino guided at Kentucky, and earlier at Providence, the Cardinals have been winning with offense. UL averages 83.3 points per game, while holding opponents to 64.4 a game. The one statistic that jumps off the page is their field-goal percentage. Louisville comes to town shooting 48.4 percent from the field for the season.
The key player for Louisville is Reece Gaines, a 6-foot-6 senior guard.
Gaines leads the Cardinals with 18.4 points per game, mostly on the strength
of solid outside shooting. Gaines has converted 86 of 175 shots from the
field (49.1 percent), including 34 of 87 from 3-point range (39.1 percent).
and done it for them. He's very good with the ball and he shoots extremely
well."