Skip To Main Content

Southwest Mississippi Community College

Scoreboard

Robert Flantroy II
Chuck Barnes

Late comeback keeps the ball rolling for the Bears

| By: by Cody Junkin
Robert Flantroy II
Southwest Mississippi's Men's Basketball showed out as they beat the Mississippi Gulf Coast Bulldogs 73-72 in a comeback win in their first home game of 2026 on January 20th.

The Bears got off to a slow start going scoreless in the opening five minutes taking on a 8-0 deficit before Chidi Nwosu ended the drought with a 3-pointer.

With 9:21 left in the first half, an old fashioned three-point play from Cy Merrett would tie the game quickly followed by a Merrett lob to Leano Rolle to take the lead.

The Bulldogs would keep things close before eventually taking a 32-29 lead going into the half.

Similar to the first, the Bears started the second half in a scoring drought as the Bulldogs would go on a quick 7-0 run to begin the half.

The Bears soon found themselves in 10-point deficit with 14:53 remaining in the game.

Five combined threes from Cy Merrett and Courterius Scott erased that deficit to give Southwest the lead with less than ten minutes on the clock.

There were ten lead changes leading down to the final minutes as the Bulldogs began to pull away, holding a 5-point lead with 2 minutes remaining.

The Bears clawed back within 1 with 23 seconds remaining when an errant shot by the Bulldogs led to a rebound and a Courterius Scott fast break where he would score the game winning layup with 9 seconds left. A few defensive plays later and the Bears would come away with a 73-72 home victory.

Courterius Scott and Cy Merrett combined for half of the team's points with 21 and 16 points with Chidi Nwosu close behind with 15 points of his own.

"Just really proud of the guys' fight and effort to stay focused and get to the next thing. There was a lot of momentum swings. A lot of momentum swings," said Coach Schmidt. "Our guys just stayed focused and locked in. Just proud of their mindset and some big plays on both sides of the ball."

The Bears (8-10, 2-0 *conference) move forward to Thursday, January 22nd as they play East Central Community College on the road in Decatur.
 
Print Friendly Version

Related Videos

Now Playing:

Related Stories