MONROE, La. – Every time Southern Miss made a charge, ULM had an answer.
 
ULM (10-14 overall, 5-8 Sun Belt Conference) scored the first nine points of the game and never trailed in a 68-59 win over Southern Miss (14-12, 7-6) Thursday night at Reed Green Coliseum. It marked ULM's first win in Hattiesburg since 1992, a streak of seven games, and USM suffered its first-ever home loss in Sun Belt Conference play after joining the conference prior to the 2022-23 season.
 
"Tremendous win," ULM head coach Keith Richard said. "Obviously, it's our best road win of the year, and one of the better wins of the year, no question. They had not lost a Sun Belt game here, and I can see why. It's loud. It's hectic. It's chaos in here."
 
While Southern Miss never tied the game or took the lead, the Golden Eagles didn't make it easy on ULM.
 
"We kept our poise," Richard said. "This thing could have gotten out of hand numerous times. Players yapping at each other, the referees, the fans. Our team kept their composure. We talked about this at halftime. I thought we were losing our mind a little bit at the end of the first half, and we've done it before this season. But we did keep our poise and didn't get into a bunch of chaos with the other team, or the officials, or with each other. That right there helped us win the game."
 
A strong defensive effort spearheaded the first 13 minutes of the game for the Warhawks.
 
Savion Gallion finished a layup off a turnover, Tyreke Locure buried a 3-pointer off a turnover and Jerry Ngopot knocked down back-to-back buckets to force a Southern Miss timeout with ULM leading 9-0 at the 15:37 mark.
 
USM continued to struggle with turnovers and hitting shots in the early portion of the game. ULM led by 10, 17-7, when the Warhawks used an 11-0 run, with the last seven points coming from Nika Metskhvarishvili, to take its largest lead of the night, 28-7, with 6:43 left in the half. However, Metskhvarishvili's 3-pointer to extend the lead to 21 was ULM's last field goal of the half.
 
Cobie Montgomery got Southern Miss going by scoring eight points over the next three minutes, cutting the gap to 13, 30-17, on a trey with 3:13 to go to halftime. The Warhawks extended the lead back to 14, but a putback layup by Tate Ryder at the halftime buzzer brought USM within 12 at the break, 33-21.
 
Southern Miss continued its charge to open the second half, going on an 8-0 run out of the locker room to get within four, 33-29, with 17:36 left. Gallion hit ULM's first field goal in 9:20 of game time, canning a 3-pointer to end the run and push the lead back to seven with 17:23 to go. Moments later, Locure hit a trey and the lead was 10 once again, 39-29.
 
The Golden Eagles punched back, going on an 8-0 run, capped on Austin Crowley's layup, to get within two, 39-37, at the 13:41 mark. ULM had its own 8-0 run to respond, with Gallion's jumper stopping the bleeding and a 3-pointer and jumper by Locure pushing the lead back to 10, 47-37, with 10:45 remaining in the game.
 
ULM pushed the lead to 12, 54-42, on a baseline jumper with 7:09 left. USM fought back with a 9-0 run, using six points from Crowley, to get within three, 54-51, with 4:34 to play. Two free throws by Metskhvarishvili ended the run. Locure buried his fifth and final 3-pointer on an inbounds play with one second showing on the shot clock to extend the Warhawk lead to seven, 59-52, at the 3:07 mark.
 
Southern Miss had one more run left. A 7-1 run, capped on Crowley's final basket of the night, pulled the Golden Eagles within a point, 60-59, with 1:27 left.
 
The next possession proved pivotal. AD Diedhiou and Jalen Bolden secured offensive rebounds to extend the possession, and Bolden was fouled by Crowley on his rebound, causing Crowley to foul out of the game. Bolden hit both free throws with 45 seconds left to go up by a full possession, 62-59. A steal by Gallion led to a layup by Bolden with 16 seconds to go to push the lead to five. Two free throws by AD Diedhiou sealed the game, and an alley-oop off the backboard from Locure to Gallion provided icing on the cake in the 68-59 win.
 
Locure had his second-straight 20-point game, scoring 20 points with five rebounds, five assists, five steals and only one turnover. Metskhvarishvili added 14 points with seven rebounds and three steals. Gallion broke into double figures for the third-straight game with 11 points, two assists and two steals.
 
"Some of the plays Tyreke made, they were just made plays," Richard said. "The big threes weren't necessarily off plays that I called. They were the secondary stuff. The guys just make plays. It's how games are won and lost a lot of times on the road. I thought Tyreke did that in a big way."
 
ULM forced 18 turnovers on the night and had 12 steals, the most by the Warhawks since coming up with 16 steals against Champion Christian on Dec. 5. ULM committed just eight turnovers.
 
"Turnovers was a big, big, big stat in the game, a huge stat," Richard said. "They turn those points into fastbreak layups."
 
Crowley led Southern Miss with 22 points and 10 rebounds for his third-straight double-double and his third-career 20-point game against ULM. Tegra Izay added 12 points with eight rebounds, while Montgomery chipped in 11 points. Southern Miss played without its second and third-leading scorers on the season in Victor Hart and Donovan Ivory.
 
ULM shot 41% (24-of-58) from the field, 35% (7-of-20) from 3-point range and 72% (13-of-18) from the free throw line. Southern Miss shot 41% (19-of-46) from the floor, 20% (4-of-20) from 3-point range and 80% (17-of-21) at the free throw line. The Golden Eagles outrebounded ULM, 36-30.
 
The win moves ULM into a four-way tie for eighth place in the Sun Belt Conference standings with South Alabama, Georgia State and Georgia Southern. The top 10 teams in the SBC standings receive a first-round bye, with the top four teams earning a double bye to the quarterfinals at the SBC Championship, which begins in just over two weeks.
 
The Warhawks wrap up the two-game road swing at 4 p.m. Saturday at Troy.