HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Although the real 2026-27 men's college basketball season won't start for Southern Miss until Nov. 2, the Golden Eagles gave fans an early look at this year's team as they took on LSU-New Orleans in an exhibition on Wednesday night at Reed Green Coliseum. When the dust settled, New Orleans' nine made 3s, including six in the second half, proved too much for Southern Miss to overcome, as the Golden Eagles lost, 82-72.
For a team with essentially a brand-new roster, the Golden Eagles looked the part in this one, as they had some defensive breakdowns and offensive possessions that they weren't able to finish the way head coach Jay Ladner would've liked.
"I saw a lot of randomness, which is my responsibility," Ladner said. "And I take responsibility for it. We may make a great play on offense, and the same guy on defense would lose his man or gamble. I thought we gambled too much. I thought there's a fine line between being aggressive and then being reckless and gambling. And when you gamble... every time we did that tonight, they made us pay."
It was those few gambles that made the difference, as LSU-New Orleans ended up with an 18-point differential in the 3-pointer category. The Privateers shot 9-of-27 from deep (33.3%), while the Golden Eagles shot just 3-of-20 from deep (15.0%).
Although things didn't go Southern Miss' way, the good news is that this was just an exhibition. The Golden Eagles lost their first exhibition game to Houston Christian last year and still went on to have a season where they won nearly 20 games and made a run to the Sun Belt semifinals despite star guard Isaac Taveras missing two months of action midseason with a hand injury.
"We do have a chance to have a good team," Ladner said. "I don't think about it any different. We just got to get some stuff cleaned up."
With all that being said, here are three big observations from Wednesday's exhibition.
Two-Man Game Between Taveras and Overstreet Could Be Interesting
As the Golden Eagles continue to build on-court chemistry and learn how to play with each other against real opponents, one connection that stood out, especially in the first half, was the two-man game between Taveras and transfer big man Marcus Overstreet.
There was one play where Taveras drove the baseline from the corner and completed a nice wrap-around pass to Overstreet in the paint for an easy layup. Moments later, with Taveras driving from the top of the key, Overstreet cleared out the lane with a screen, allowing Taveras to finish a layup of his own. As Ladner and his staff continue to fine-tune the rotation and figure out what works and what doesn't, mark this duo down as something that will likely work more times than not.
Taveras finished with a game-high 21 points on 6-of-17 shooting from the floor and 8-of-11 from the free-throw line. He also grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and recorded five steals. Overstreet showcased his grittiness on the boards, grabbing six in just over 20 minutes of action. And even when he wasn't officially credited with an offensive rebound, he was causing LSU-New Orleans to rack up fouls early and often.
Brandon Weston Brings Scoring Punch Off the Bench
The Southern Miss offense got off to a jittery start, but things seemed to settle down a little bit once Tennessee State transfer Brandon Weston checked into the game off the bench. The redshirt senior guard joined Taveras as the only other Golden Eagle to score in double figures, finishing with 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting overall and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line in a little over 13 minutes of action. Weston did end up with four turnovers on the night, but a few of those were cases where he drove to the rim and didn't receive a foul call.
Overall, the Southern Miss bench outscored LSU-New Orleans' bench 41-35, but the Privateers' 26-15 advantage in points off turnovers and made 3-pointers ended up being the difference.
Now, The Golden Eagles Will Find Out Even More About Themselves
Even though it was just an exhibition game that doesn't count on the record, nobody wants to lose their opening appearance at home after an offseason of hard work. However, there's a reason teams have these preseason games before the real ones start. It's not the end of the world, and Ladner is eager to see what Wednesday's result brings out of his team going forward.
"We're going to find out now," Ladner said about his team. "Now we can kind of get to the bottom of it. Now we're going to find out what kind of team we got. The guys that didn't play. Everybody's really positive when everybody's playing a lot."
And although Ladner would obviously love to see his team shoot better than 36.7 percent overall, he also knows the 72 points they scored on Wednesday would've been enough to win had it not been for the defensive lapses. That's one area that will determine what the Southern Miss rotation will look like going forward.
"You're going to play defense, or you're not going to play for Southern Miss," Ladner said. "It's just that simple. And so we'll see what the reaction is, and what our team's about character-wise moving forward. ... Let's circle back in two weeks when we open the season, and if we're not a better team, then it falls dead on me. But we'll be a much better team when we open up."
The Golden Eagles have one more exhibition game at Houston Christian on Wednesday, Oct. 28, before returning home to open up the 2026-27 season against Tougaloo at Reed Green Coliseum on Monday, Nov. 2. Stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more basketball coverage in the coming weeks.
Add us as a preferred source on Google