SMU 85, Southern 72: A Freshman Who Played Pro Ball in Poland Scores 24, and the Mustangs Win Ugly at the Line
SMU's season opener was not clean — 21 turnovers against a Southern team that stole the ball 17 times — but it was a win, 85-72 at Moody Coliseum, because freshman Jakub Szumert scored 24 points and the Mustangs outscored the Jaguars 32-12 at the free-throw line.
SMU opened its season with a win it had to work for. Freshman forward Jakub Szumert, who played professionally in Poland before arriving in Dallas, finished with 24 points and seven rebounds to lead the Mustangs past Southern, 85-72, on Monday night at Moody Coliseum, Reuters reported.
Szumert's line was a study in efficiency: 5 of 6 from the field, and 13 of 14 at the free-throw line. That last number was the game's story in miniature — SMU actually made fewer field goals than Southern, 26 to 23, but outscored the Jaguars 32-12 from the stripe, a 20-point margin in a 13-point game.
Jermaine O'Neal Jr. added 15 points and Oziyah Sellers 13 for SMU, which led just 40-38 at halftime. The Mustangs scored the first nine points of the second half, and when Southern's 9-1 run cut the lead to 52-49 with 13:25 remaining, Szumert answered, scoring 11 of SMU's first 19 points of the half to rebuild the margin.
Southern's defense was the reason the game stayed close as long as it did: the Jaguars finished with 17 steals, and SMU turned the ball over 21 times. Southern did not put a scorer in double figures until R'Chaun King's layup reached 10 points with 6:22 left — pressure without enough scoring to cash it in.
An opener is a first draft, and SMU's has both things a coaching staff wants to see in November: a newcomer who can carry a scoring load in his first college game, and a glaring, fixable flaw — the turnovers — to spend the week on. The Mustangs are 1-0, and the draft only gets harder from here.
