The regular season has taken a different dynamic in 2024 for Southern Miss.

After winning an outright regular season title last season, Jay Ladner & Co. drew the 1-seed in the program’s first Sun Belt conference tournament. But a disappointing one-and-done exit begged the question: is the first-round bye worth it?

The short answer is yes. A top 4 seed in the SBC Tournament gives you the best chance to win the tournament outright by virtue of having to play fewer games. It’s also true that, often, the team who has more days off has a harder time getting back into rhythm. And in postseason basketball, rhythm is everything.

To boot, there is no longer an automatic NIT bid for regular season champions after rule changes this past offseason. With just 9 scholarship players currently available with Victor Hart and Andre Curbelo out, the pressure to get back to full strength may be lessened a bit this go around for Jay Ladner’s program.

“First and foremost, we’re never going to rush a player back,” said Ladner on Monday. “Ever.”

Though the goal doesn’t change for the Golden Eagles to win a regular season title, the dynamic differs for Ladner. “Is there still pride involved in that? Do we still want to do it? Absolutely. We’re the defending champions.”

“We want to have all of our horses in the stable when we go to the conference tournament,” said Ladner. “I’d rather not be at full strength now and take a risk, as opposed to having a guy ready at the end of the season because we allowed him to be fully healthy.”

South Alabama is the prime example of the “better to be hot than anything else” line of thinking. The Jaguars started the conference slate 1-7, got all of their horses back in the barn headed into Pensacola, and came up a few possessions short of running the table on the way to an NCAA Tournament bid.

“But had they not had to play that extra game,” said Ladner, “they might have had the legs to do it.”

So the objective stays the same for Southern Miss, including nabbing a top-4 seed. But the most important factor in the next 7 weeks is to get back to full strength and to be playing their best basketball come postseason time.

The silver lining of missing Hart and Curbelo is that others are being pressed into important spots. Victor Iwuakor filled some of the production gap in a big way in the 69-66 win over hot-shooting Arkansas State on Wednesday night – recording a double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds) along with 6 big blocks. Bryse Hall is also garnering important minutes, and the first-year Golden Eagle is steadily improving in Hart’s absence.

The regular season push continues on Saturday for the beaten-up Black and Gold, with a rematch against league-leading and undefeated Troy on deck.