Southern Miss dropped to 14-6 overall and 2-5 in the league, while Memphis improved to 15-6 and 5-3.

"This is the most physical team we’ve played this season," Head Coach Rick Reeves said. "We are a young team and we struggled with their physical play."

Southern Miss opened the game scoring the first four points, but Memphis came roaring back behind three-straight three-pointers by Devin Necaise to give the Tigers a 9-4 lead. Southern Miss used a 6-1 run to tie the game at 10 with 12:03. Over the next three minutes, both teams traded baskets with Memphis holding a two-point advantage, 18-16, when the Tigers then scored seven straight points to build a seven-point lead, 23-16, at the 7:53 mark.

Memphis continued to build on its lead and outscored Southern Miss 12-6 in the last five minutes to take a 35-24 halftime lead.

Memphis started the second half scoring the first five points for a 16-point lead, 40-24, only 1:38 into the half. Southern Miss clawed its way back to within seven points, 45-38, with 11:25 remaining, only to see Memphis push its lead back to double-digits that started with a banked in three-point attempt by Tamika Butler.

"They had an answer for every time we got close," Reeves said. "We couldn’t keep them off the free throw line."

With 6:00 remaining, the Lady Eagles trailed only six points, 54-48, and that’s when Swilley went to work and scored four straight points. Southern Miss answered again with a 4-0 run itself to cut the lead to six, 58-52, at the 4:31 mark and that was as close as the Lady Eagles would get. Memphis finished the game with a 15-9 run.

Deondra Carter led Southern Miss with 14 points, with Allison Story adding 11 points and Michelle Poindexter recorded her sixth double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

For the visitors, Victoria Crawford led the way with 17 points, and three others, Necaise, Swilley and Raven Rogers scored 13 points each. Rogers also pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds.

Memphis shot 43.6 percent from the field while limiting Southern Miss to 39.7 percent shooting. Memphis also was 20-of-30 from the charity stripe, while the Lady Eagles hit just nine of their 18 attempts from the line. Southern Miss outrebounded Memphis, 40-39. The Lady Tigers scored 18 points off 15 USM turnovers, while the Lady Eagles managed 13 points off 12 Memphis miscues.

Southern Miss hits the road for a pair of C-USA games at nationally-ranked Houston on Friday and TCU on Sunday.