Mississippi Today
From 7-26 to 19-4, USM basketball transformation has been stunning
From 7-26 to 19-4, USM basketball transformation has been stunning
Eleven moths ago, Southern Miss finished the 2021-22 men’s basketball season with only seven victories versus 26 defeats. If you think that’s bad — and it is abysmal — the Golden Eagles won just one of 18 conference games. That’s worse.
That’s also a winning percentage of 21.2% overall and 5.8% in the league. Fan support reached an all-time low. You look around Green Coliseum and count the people in attendance. It didn’t take long.
Few head coaches would keep their jobs after that, especially when completing their third season at the school. Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner knows it.
“I’m forever thankful my bosses saw fit to keep me around,” Ladner said recently. “I’m aware that wouldn’t be the case most places.”
Fast forward to Saturday afternoon at Green Coliseum, where Ladner’s current Golden Eagles polished off two-time defending Sun Belt champion Texas State 67-58 for their 19th victory of the season against just four defeats. The Eagles are 8-2 and tied for first place in the Sun Belt Conference. They are 12-0 at home. More than 16,000 people attended the recent four-game home stand and while that might not sound like a lot, the crowds were extremely loud and boisterous and made for a decided home court advantage. It is not stretching matters to say that the thunderous cheering made a critical difference in USM erasing a two-point deficit and winning by nine in the last three minutes, 30 seconds Saturday.
Amazingly, Ladner’s fourth Southern Miss team is approaching historic accomplishment on a national level. Few programs in the sport’s history have improved as much as these Golden Eagles in a year’s time. Certainly, no team in Southern Miss history has.
The 1998 Ohio State and 1979 Murray State teams are tied for the biggest turn-arounds in NCAA Division I history with victory increases of 19 games. Ohio State went from eight victories to 27. Murray State went from four victories to 23.
With eight regular season games to be played, Southern Miss already has increased its victory total by 12. While it’s not likely the Eagles will eclipse that previous record in the regular season, it’s possible. And they will definitely play in the Sun Belt Tournament at Pensacola and after that also will play in some kind of postseason tournament barring a total collapse.
Eight more victories, which would constitute an improvement of 20 and an NCAA record, are entirely realistic.
Ladner acknowledges that possibility while declining to talk much about it. When you’ve been where he was last season, you really do take everything one game at a time. You can’t afford to do otherwise.
So, really, how did this happen? How do you go from winning 21% of you games one season to winning 83% of your games the next year. The first thing you do is you don’t stand pat. In Ladner’s case, he darn near started over. Gone are six of last season’s top seven scorers. The current roster includes 11 newcomers.
First, Ladner hired two new assistant coaches and used those coaching hires to bring in some desperately needed new talent. Juan Cardona, the man Ladner calls his defensive coordinator, used prior relationships to help land multi-talented Chilean Felipe Hasse and Puerto Rican point guard Neftali Alvarez. Ladner also hired former Ole Miss graduate assistant Nick Williams, who helped him land former Rebel Austin Crowley in the transfer portal.
Crowley leads the team in scoring with 17.6 points per game and presumably will be a candidate for Sun Belt Player of the Year. Hasse is second on the team in scoring and rebounding and assists. He is a highly skilled, 6-foot-9-inch Swiss army knife who scores both inside and outside and might be the team’s best passer. He shoots 40% from 3-point land.
Crowley and Hasse share leadership duties with returner DeAndre Pinkney, who has to be among the most improved players in the country. “Pink,” as he is known, is another big man (6-8 with a long wingspan) who can shoot the 3-ball or slam-dunk it depending on the situation. He scores 14 per game and leads the team in rebounding with seven a game.
Says Ladner, “When your three best players are your three hardest workers, it’s really a huge plus for a coach. They lead by example, as well as vocally. The others see how hard they work. It really helps our team chemistry.”
That chemistry might be the team’s best ingredient, especially when you realize how many of the players are new ingredients. The Eagles play with a collective passion, especially in Cardona’s pressure defense. (As long as USM defenders work as hard on the court as Cardona does on the bench, opponents will have problems. Cardona, a whirling dervish on the sidelines, sweats through his sports coat every game.) Offensively, they share the ball with a readily apparent selflessness.
“It’s been that way from day one,” Ladner says. “It may sound trite, but they really do like each other.”
Keep in mind, the Eagles have played much of the season without two of their best players. Alvarez, the lightning quick point guard, started early and helped the Eagles win by 12 at Vanderbilt in only the third game of the season. Then, in the next game, he suffered a foot injury that sidelined him for the next 16 games. Alvarez, who seemingly amps the energy level every time he enters the game, is now coming off the bench and playing himself back into shape. Denijay Harris, another starter who averages eight points and five rebounds a game, also missed several games with severely bruised ribs.
With Alvarez and Harris sidelined, Ladner plugged others into the lineup with a show of depth that he could have only dreamed about previously. Picayune native and Jacksonville transfer Mo Arnold was particularly dependable at point guard during Alvarez’s absence.
Ladner’s leadership should not be overlooked when listing all the critical factors in the Southern Miss turn-around. Talk to his peers and you will hear little other than respect for his coaching acumen. After playing for Hall of Famer M.K. Turk at Southern Miss, he won more than 500 games as a high school coach and then a national junior college championship at Jones College. Just prior to coming to USM, Ladner coached at Southeastern Louisiana where his teams won nine, then 12, then 16 and then 22 games. His Xs and Os acumen is readily apparent, as the Eagles often score on set plays after timeouts or other stoppages in play.
When Ladner played for Turk, Green Coliseum was often packed to the rafters. He knows what 9,000 people sound like in the place.
“I remember. Anybody who was here remembers,” Ladner said. “I want our guys to experience what I did. Here lately, we’re making strides in that direction. We’re getting there.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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