Just two days after pulling off an exciting win at Reed Green Coliseum, the Southern Miss men’s basketball team (2-1) is back on the road Friday night to face Texas State (3-0) at Strahan Arena in San Marcos, Texas.

Wednesday night, the Golden Eagles erased a 15-point second-half deficit and beat Jackson State 84-80 in overtime, even though they trailed by five with 17 seconds left in regulation. Jalyke Gaines-Wyatt poured in a career-high 28 points and went 11-of-12 from the free-throw line, while Cameron Wallace added 21 points off the bench.

Although Southern Miss head coach Jay Ladner was happy to leave with a win, he knows that the first 30-plus minutes of that game left a lot to be desired.

“I wasn’t pleased, as I said, with our preparation,” Ladner said. “I wasn’t pleased with the way we started the game. Our execution generally wasn’t good. Our defensive intensity was poor. [We] weren’t rebounding the basketball. But as the game got going, and it got to winning time, I was very proud of our guys. … I hope it’s a lesson to all of us, me as a coach and our staff, but our players too.”

Ladner also said he'll be leaning on his two veterans who carried the load late in that Jackson State game.

“We’re really counting on these two guys, as well as a few others, to provide leadership,” Ladner said of Gaines-Wyatt and Wallace. “They’ve been there, they’ve done it. And they’re great young men. They’re high-character guys, and I think that pays off, too. … Time after time again, they made plays for us.”

Big Road Test Awaits

Friday’s opponent is one the Golden Eagles are very familiar with. Southern Miss and Texas State were Sun Belt rivals for years before the Bobcats left for the Pac-12 this season, and the matchups have rarely been anything short of a slugfest. The Golden Eagles lead the all-time series 6-4 and won the most recent meeting 81-77 in last season’s Sun Belt Tournament in Pensacola. Winning in San Marcos has been a different story, though, as Southern Miss is just 1-3 all-time there.

“Three of the last four times I think we’ve been out there, it’s gone to overtime,” Ladner said. “Had a war with them in the conference tournament last year. … And they’ve now moved to the Pac-10 or eight or 12 or whatever it is these days.”

Ladner knows that move came with plenty of new resources, and that Texas State also didn’t lose much from last year’s team.

“Their program has taken a financial infusion in changing leagues,” Ladner said. “And so we know that they’re going to have an outstanding team. They have a lot of the same players they had that were really good for them last year. [Terrence Johnson] does a great job.”

Texas State is off to its best start since 2011-12 and is shooting a blistering 54 percent from the floor and 42.6 percent from 3-point range. Paul Djobet leads the Bobcats at 14.7 points per game on 60 percent shooting, DJ Hall adds 14.3 points and a team-best 6.3 rebounds per game, and Dimp Pernell is coming off a career-high 26 points in Tuesday’s 72-65 road win over UTRGV.

That makes Friday Southern Miss’ second strong road test against a high-quality opponent in a week, after a lopsided 83-57 loss at No. 18 Iowa State on Nov. 6. If the Golden Eagles start the way they did on Wednesday against Jackson State, they probably won’t get a second chance to come back in this one.

“We’ll have a short turnaround, but I’m hoping that we’ll continue on,” Ladner said. “We got an opportunity to carry the momentum from tonight and not revert back to, ‘Hey, we think we can just go out there and show up and beat somebody.’”

Tipoff is at 7 p.m. CT on the Pac-12 YouTube channel. After that, the Golden Eagles come home to host UT Arlington at 7 p.m. CT on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

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