Marquette University Athletics
Marquette University
Southern Miss
Marquette Falls To Southern Mississippi, 78-65
1/30/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2001
MILWAUKEE (AP) - Vandarel Jones scored 22 points and Elvin Mims 19 as Southern Mississippi, playing without two starters, defeated Marquette 78-65 in a Conference USA game Tuesday night.
David Wall, the Golden Eagles' leading scorer at 15.4 points a game, was out with a knee injury and Kilavorus Thompson, who had started 18 of 19 games and averages 7.8 points and 5.7 rebounds, also didn't dress.
Carlos Gill, the first big man to usually come off the bench, was not in uniform.
Mims helped fill Gill's void from the outside and Jones did the same inside.
Southern Mississippi made 9 of 19 3-point shots against the best team in C-USA at defending the 3-pointer. Marquette's opponents had made just 26.3 percent of their 3-pointers coming into the game.
Brian Wardle led Marquette with 32 points and Cordell Henry scored 17.
Mims scored 14 points in the first half, making 4 of 5 3-point shots, as Southern Mississippi (16-4, 6-2 C-USA) built a 38-29 halftime lead.
Southern Mississippi opened the second half with a 3-pointer by Mario Myles to take a 12-point lead.
Marquette (10-8, 5-2) got within 46-42, but a 3-pointer by Clement Carter started an 11-0 run that put the Golden Eagles on top by 15 points with 11:42 to play.
The closest Marquette came after that was 65-58 with 3 minutes left. Southern Mississippi moved within a half-game of Memphis in the loss column for first place in the National Division.
Marquette remained a game ahead of Cincinnati and Louisville in the American Division.
