STATESBORO– Georgia Southern men's basketball earned its first win of the season in its final game of 2023, taking down defending regular-season champion Southern Miss in its Sun Belt opener, 88-67.
"A lot of work has gone into this, and the team still comes in every day after the rough start," head coach Charlie Henry said. "We've had to still come in every day ready to work, practice hard and keep buying into the things we're telling them, which is positive energy, great effort, being great teammates and being coachable. As long as we keep getting that, we will be good."
GS (1-12, 1-0 Sun Belt) had its largest halftime lead and kept the foot on the gas, trailing Southern Miss (6-7, 0-1) for just 18 seconds in a complete victory.
A Carlos Curry dunk gave the Eagles their first lead of the day, and GS extended that to as much as seven early on.
The Golden Eagles stormed back to take a two-point lead, but that was short-lived as an Eren Banks layup pushed the lead back to nine.
Derrick Harris Jr.'s corner three made it an eight-point advantage for the Eagles at the break, their largest halftime lead.
An 11-3 run to begin the second half added to the Eagles' big lead as Tyren Moore, who scored 11 points in the second half, began to take over.
The advantage got to as much as 24 before the end of the game, as the Eagles shut down Southern Miss. Tyler Bush and Luke Keller made their season debuts as the Eagles closed the game with an 88-67 win.
Moore continued his torrid stretch at home with another 27 points, a season-best six rebounds and five assists, pushing his scoring average to 29 ppg at home.
"[Other games] have been a matter of me overthinking when I'm in the game and not letting the game come to me," Moore said. "Today, I played poised, and we stuck to our game plan when they switched defenses."
Harris Jr. (12), Banks (12) and Bryant (11) joined him in double figures as the Eagles shot a season-best 57.6 percent from the field and 51.7 percent from three.
Moore and Eugene Brown III each had six rebounds to lead the team.
Henry and the squad will look to carry over the momentum from his first win as head coach to Arkansas State in the new year, traveling to Jonesboro on Jan. 4.
