Box Score

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Evan Faulkner (Sandyhook, Ky.) jump started his senior campaign with a 21 point effort as the University of Charleston men's basketball team took Conference-USA power Southern Mississippi down the wire in the 2012 exhibition opener.

UC, coming off an NCAA Tournament berth in 2011, came off the opening tip on fire hitting five of their first six attempts from behind the arc en route to running off to a 21-8 advantage that stunned the home standing USM Golden Eagles.

Southern Miss began to exploit the size advantage against Charleston midway through the second half, which allowed the home team to claw back into the contest and carried them for the remainder of the game. A six minute scoring drought near the end of the first half allowed USM to slip out to a 32-29 halftime lead.

The second half saw the NCAA Division I contender go back inside against a smaller guard dominated lineup to pull out to a nine-point advantage after the first five minutes of the final period. UC recovered behind exceptional shooting to get within 43-40, but that would be as much of the deficit as they could whittle for the remainder of the evening.

Southern Miss was consistent in scoring in the paint, which also allowed them to gather easy points at the free throw line. USM booked 36 points in the paint in the game, while recording 20-of-25 attempts at the charity stripe. Charleston managed just eight points in the paint and 8-of-13 from the free throw line.

For the night, UC shot 37 percent (19-of-51) from the floor but gained a boost from hitting 12 three-point attempts.

Faulkner led all scorers in the game with Hayden Annett (Portland, Australia) (12) and Xavier Humphrey (Wake Forest, N.C.) (11) following as double-digit scorers. Terrell Lipkins (Canton, Ohio) directed the offense in his debut to the tune of eight assists with five points and five rebounds.

"We got out toughed tonight. We knew going in they were going to shoot and go get it. They did exactly that and we couldn't stop it." stated head coach Mark Downey. "We settled for too many jump shots, but there were a lot of positives as we were playing a little short-handed, yet the guys handled adversity well."

"There were mistakes, but a lot of what I saw is all fixable. It was a great experience against full-court press and a lot of zone pressure. We needed to play some of that because that's what we'll see all season long. The best part was we got to play some of our own stuff and started building team chemistry with a bunch of guys playing a real game together for the first time."