GAME NOTES: Southern Miss begins a two-game homestand on Thursday night, as the Golden Eagles host the Roadrunners of Texas-San Antonio in Conference USA action at Reed Green Coliseum.

The Golden Eagles have had a rough go of it in conference play this season with a mere two wins in 15 tries, with one of those victories coming in overtime. The team was most recently on the hardwood last weekend, matching up with Charlotte on the road and absorbing a lopsided 71-43 setback. It was the second loss in a row and the seventh in the last eight outings overall for the program.

While the Golden Eagles are next-to-last in the conference standings, UTSA is far more respectable with a split of 14 league bouts, tying it with North Texas and Rice for seventh place prior to action on Wednesday night. The Roadrunners started off February well enough with three straight victories, but have since dropped two in a row, the latest setback being a 69-62 final versus UTEP on the road five days ago.

This is just the third game all-time between these two schools, with each having posted a win previously. Last month, the Roadrunner delivered a convincing 77-57 victory at home during what was a nine-game slide for USM.

UTSA led the Miners by as many as 12 points less than eight minutes into the contest last Saturday at the Don Haskins Center, but the visitors then saw a 21-point shift and eventually came out with the seven-point loss. Jeromie Hill and Ryan Bowie both tallied 14 points and Keon Lewis 12 for the Roadrunners, as they ended up shooting not only 5-of-18 behind the 3-point line, but also a mere 5-of-12 at the charity stripe.

The effort at the free-throw line versus the Miners marked just the second time this season that UTSA had less than 10 attempts in a single game and was by far the worst performance from a percentage standpoint (.417). Hill, who is a 60.8 percent shooter at the stripe during league bouts, is responsible for 18.0 ppg and is also tops with 7.8 rpg, while Lewis checks in with another 15.1 ppg, although in his case he has knocked down an impressive 82.0 percent at the line.

The Golden Eagles delivered their second straight lackluster performance when they posted only 43 points against Charlotte at Halton Arena last weekend. Just two days earlier, the team was limited to 38 points by Old Dominion, just two points shy of the season-low of 36 scored at Drexel back in November. Chip Armelin tried to give USM a fighting chance with his 16 points, while Norville Carey tacked on 10, but with the entire team shooting only 32.1 percent from the floor, 4-of-19 out on the perimeter, there was little hope for success.

As the only player on the Golden Eagles to have started all 15 conference games, it only makes sense that Armelin is also the top scorer with 18.7 ppg. Armelin, who is averaging just under 39 minutes per contest, has accounted for 39 of the unit's 91 3-pointers in those contests and is also first with 33 assists and 18 steals, as he gives it a full effort whenever he is on the floor. Matt Bingaya checks in with 13.1 ppg and Carey another 12.3 ppg, as the duo combines for 11.9 rpg in order to give the group a fighting chance on the glass.

The Golden Eagles may be playing in front of the hometown crowd in this one, but based on the fact that they lost by 20 to UTSA in the first meeting of the season, the odds still favor the Roadrunners.