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From 7-26 to 19-4, USM basketball transformation has been stunning

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From 7-26 to 19-4, USM basketball transformation has been stunning

After each home victory, Southern Miss players join the celebration in the student section at Green Coliseum. The Golden Eagles are 12-0 at home and 19-4 overall. (Joe Harper/Southern Miss)

Eleven moths ago, Southern Miss finished the 2021-22 's basketball season with only seven victories versus 26 defeats. If you think that's bad — and it is abysmal — the Golden Eagles won just one of 18 conference . That's worse.

That's also a winning percentage of 21.2% overall and 5.8% in the league. Fan reached an all-time low. You look around Green Coliseum and count the people in attendance. It didn't take long. 

Rick Cleveland

Few head coaches would keep their jobs after that, especially when completing their third season at the school. Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner knows it.

“I'm forever thankful my bosses saw fit to keep me around,” Ladner said recently. “I'm aware that wouldn't be the case most places.”

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Fast forward to Saturday afternoon at Green Coliseum, where Ladner's current Golden Eagles polished off two-time defending Sun Belt champion Texas State 67-58 for their 19th victory of the season against just four defeats. The Eagles are 8-2 and tied for first place in the Sun Belt Conference. They are 12-0 at home. More than 16,000 people attended the recent four-game home stand and while that might not sound like a lot, the crowds were extremely loud and boisterous and made for a decided home court advantage. It is not stretching matters to say that the thunderous cheering made a critical difference in USM erasing a two-point deficit and winning by nine in the last three minutes, 30 seconds Saturday.

Jay Ladner's Eagles are rolling.

Amazingly, Ladner's fourth Southern Miss team is approaching historic accomplishment on a national level. Few programs in the sport's history have improved as much as these Golden Eagles in a year's time. Certainly, no team in Southern Miss history has.

The 1998 Ohio State and 1979 Murray State teams are tied for the biggest turn-arounds in NCAA Division I history with victory increases of 19 games. Ohio State went from eight victories to 27. Murray State went from four victories to 23.

With eight regular season games to be played, Southern Miss already has increased its victory total by 12. While it's not likely the Eagles will eclipse that previous record in the regular season, it's possible. And they will definitely play in the Sun Belt Tournament at Pensacola and after that also will play in some kind of postseason tournament barring a total collapse.

At 6-9, Felipe Hasse shoots 40 percent from 3-point land. (Joe Harper)

Eight more victories, which would constitute an improvement of 20 and an NCAA record, are entirely realistic.

Ladner acknowledges that possibility while declining to talk much about it. When you've been where he was last season, you really do take everything one game at a time. You can't afford to do otherwise.

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So, really, how did this happen? How do you go from winning 21% of you games one season to winning 83% of your games the next year. The first thing you do is you don't stand pat. In Ladner's case, he darn near started over. Gone are six of last season's top seven scorers. The current roster includes 11 newcomers.

First, Ladner hired two new assistant coaches and used those coaching hires to bring in some desperately needed new talent. Juan Cardona, the man Ladner calls his defensive coordinator, used prior relationships to land multi-talented Chilean Felipe Hasse and Puerto Rican point guard Neftali Alvarez. Ladner also hired former Ole Miss graduate assistant Nick Williams, who helped him land former Rebel Austin Crowley in the transfer portal.

Crowley leads the team in scoring with 17.6 points per game and presumably will be a candidate for Sun Belt Player of the Year. Hasse is second on the team in scoring and rebounding and assists. He is a highly skilled, 6-foot-9-inch Swiss army knife who scores both inside and outside and might be the team's best passer. He shoots 40% from 3-point land.

Austin Crowley leads Southern Miss in scoring. (Joe Harper)

Crowley and Hasse share leadership duties with returner DeAndre Pinkney, who has to be among the most improved players in the country. “Pink,” as he is known, is another big man (6-8 with a long wingspan) who can shoot the 3-ball or slam-dunk it depending on the situation. He scores 14 per game and leads the team in rebounding with seven a game.

Says Ladner, “When your three best players are your three hardest workers, it's really a huge plus for a coach. They by example, as well as vocally. The others see how hard they work. It really helps our team chemistry.”

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That chemistry might be the team's best ingredient, especially when you realize how many of the players are new ingredients. The Eagles play with a collective passion, especially in Cardona's pressure defense. (As long as USM defenders work as hard on the court as Cardona does on the bench, opponents will have problems. Cardona, a whirling dervish on the sidelines, sweats through his coat every game.) Offensively, they share the ball with a readily apparent selflessness.

“It's been that way from day one,” Ladner says. “It may sound trite, but they really do like each other.”

Keep in mind, the Eagles have played much of the season without two of their best players. Alvarez, the lightning quick point guard, started early and helped the Eagles win by 12 at Vanderbilt in only the third game of the season. Then, in the next game, he suffered a foot injury that sidelined him for the next 16 games. Alvarez, who seemingly amps the energy level every time he enters the game, is now coming off the bench and playing himself back into shape. Denijay Harris, another starter who averages eight points and five a game, also missed several games with severely bruised ribs.

With Alvarez and Harris sidelined, Ladner plugged others into the lineup with a show of depth that he could have only dreamed about previously. native and Jacksonville transfer Mo Arnold was particularly dependable at point guard during Alvarez's absence.

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Ladner's leadership should not be overlooked when listing all the critical factors in the Southern Miss turn-around. Talk to his peers and you will hear little other than respect for his coaching acumen. After playing for Hall of Famer M.K. Turk at Southern Miss, he won more than 500 games as a high school coach and then a national junior college championship at Jones College. Just prior to coming to USM, Ladner coached at Southeastern where his teams won nine, then 12, then 16 and then 22 games. His Xs and Os acumen is readily apparent, as the Eagles often score on set plays after timeouts or other stoppages in play.

When Ladner played for Turk, Green Coliseum was often packed to the rafters. He knows what 9,000 people sound like in the place.

“I remember. Anybody who was here remembers,” Ladner said. “I want our guys to experience what I did. Here lately, we're making strides in that direction. We're getting there.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi lawmakers look to other states’ Medicaid expansions. Is Georgia worth copying?

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mississippitoday.org – Sophia Paffenroth – 2024-03-28 10:58:47

As the Mississippi Republican-led considers expanding for the first time after a decade-long debate, Senate have referenced other Southern states' expansion plans as alternatives to full expansion. 

On Wednesday, the Senate Medicaid Committee passed the House Republican expansion bill with a strike-all and replaced it with its own plan, which Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, called “expansion light.” The Senate is expected to take the bill up for a floor vote Thursday, with a plan that's nearly identical to Georgia's. 

Problems with “Georgia Pathways”

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Health care policy experts don't think Georgia's plan is worth emulating. The state's plan, called “Georgia Pathways,” misses out on the increased federal match of 90% that the law to newly expanded states, and it also doesn't qualify for the additional $690 million federal dollars that would make expansion free to Mississippi for four years.

And the plan, touted as a conservative alternative to what critics call “Obamacare,” has cost state taxpayers $26 million so far, with more than 90% of that going toward administrative and consulting costs, according to KFF Health News. Implementing work requirements is costly and labor intensive because it involves hiring more staff and processing monthly paperwork to confirm enrollees are employed. 

“Georgia's plan has proven to be very profitable for large companies like Deloitte (the primary consultant for Georgia's project) but has provided health care to almost no one who needs it,” said Joan Alker, Medicaid expert and executive director of Georgetown 's Center for and Families. “It's been a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars so far.”

If the Senate plan were signed into law, Mississippi would fare the same – receiving its regular federal match of only 77% instead of 90% – and risk large administrative costs for enforcing a 120-hour-a-month work requirement and a provision that says recipients must be recertified four times a year.

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Work requirements ‘costly' to enforce

In theory, a work requirement isn't controversial. A majority of Mississippi lawmakers in both chambers want to reserve Medicaid coverage for those who are working or exempt, with legislation that incentivizes employment in the state with the lowest labor participation rate. The problem, experts say, is that in practice, it can do more harm than good. 

Policing and enforcing the work requirement costs more than it would cost to insure the small population of unemployed people who would become eligible for Medicaid under traditional expansion, explained Morgan Henderson, principal data scientist at the Hilltop Institute, a nonpartisan research group that conducted several studies detailing what Medicaid expansion would look like in Mississippi. 

“Medicaid work requirements are costly to implement,” Henderson said. “States have to develop new administrative systems which can cost millions, or tens of millions, of dollars. Additionally, employment reporting requirements can be confusing and burdensome for individuals, so people who are legitimately employed and income-eligible for Medicaid may be denied coverage – thus, hurting the exact individuals who are supposed to qualify for Medicaid with work requirements.”

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In Georgia, only 3,500 people have signed up since the program began in July – despite the millions of dollars taxpayers have paid to run the program and ' previous estimate that roughly 25,000 people would sign up in the first year and 52,000 by the fifth year. 

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in an interview in February that the Mississippi Senate plan likely wouldn't be as strict as Georgia's, calling their work requirement “onerous.” 

But the Senate plan is even stricter than Georgia's, calling for at least 120 hours of work a month instead of the 80 hours required in Georgia. 

In Arkansas, a work requirement was briefly implemented in 2018 before it was overturned.

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A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found Arkansas' work requirement to be unsuccessful at increasing employment. The main consequence of the state's work requirement was an increase in the number of uninsured persons to full expansion and “no significant changes” in employment associated with the policy, according to the study. 

In addition, “more than 95% of persons who were targeted by the policy already met the requirement or should have been exempt.”

What's next?

The only expansion bill still alive in the Mississippi Legislature is House Bill 1725, authored by Speaker Jason White, R-West, and Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, which is now before the Senate. The bill, as passed by the House, has a provisional work requirement, but would expand Medicaid to 138% of the federal poverty level – even if a work requirement is not approved by federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

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That's important because during the Biden administration, the federal   has rescinded work requirement waivers previously granted under the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. 

But the Senate version is entirely contingent on the work requirement, calling for a minimum of 120 work hours a month and quarterly recertification. Eligibility also only goes up to 100% of the federal poverty level. 

If the Senate were to stand firm on the work requirement, expansion might not go into effect until well into 2025. That is, if a new administration takes office. 

A provision in North Carolina's recent expansion bill could prove useful as Mississippi lawmakers debate the details of expanding Medicaid.

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A North Carolina expansion bill passed in 2023 is a mostly-traditional expansion plan with a unique work requirement provision. Expansion originally passed without a work requirement, but included a provision that says if or when a federal administration that favors the concept takes office, the state will change Medicaid eligibility rules and adopt the work requirement. 

If Mississippi were to include this kind of language in its own bill, it could expand Medicaid in 2024 or at the start of 2025, instead of waiting well into a new presidential term.

In theory, work requirements make sense, Henderson said. But they haven't produced the desired outcome of increasing the labor force participation rate in other states. That fact, coupled with the costly administrative burden of enforcing them and the unfortunate consequence of eligible enrollees losing coverage make the work requirement an unworthy pursuit, Henderson and Alker conclude. 

“In theory, it's true that, under Medicaid expansion, individuals earning slightly more than 138% of the federal poverty level could have an incentive to reduce their earnings in order to qualify for Medicaid,” said Henderson. “However, there are reasons to believe that this will be rare.”

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The three reasons Henderson gives are: “First, not all workers know their exact income as a fraction of the current federal poverty limit, which changes every year and is a function of household size. Second, not all workers can control their hours. Third, individuals earning just above 138% of the federal poverty level have access to generous subsidies through the insurance marketplace, which could reduce the incentive to reduce income to qualify for Medicaid.”

And in practice, Henderson said, “no studies I'm aware of have found evidence of Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions adverse effects on employment outcomes.”

The Senate is expected to vote on House Bill 1725 on Thursday. While the bill only needs a three-fifths vote to pass the floor, it realistically needs a two-thirds majority from both chambers to show it has the potential to override a threatened veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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J.Z. George’s descendant advocates for removing the statue of the Confederate icon from the nation’s Capitol

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-03-28 09:17:10

The great-great-great grandson of Confederate icon J.Z. George wants to see his ancestor's statue moved from the U.S. Capitol back to Mississippi.

Each day, hundreds visit the Capitol's Statuary Hall to glimpse the two statues from each state. Mississippi is the only state represented strictly by Confederate . They are George and Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy.

In recent decades, states such as Alabama and Florida have replaced statues of those who fought in the Civil War or supported secession with notable leaders or trailblazers. States pay for the statues, which represent deceased citizens “illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration.”

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Beyond Confederate figures, Ohio replaced a slave-supporting governor with inventor Thomas Edison. California replaced a little-known minister with former President Ronald Reagan. North Carolina replaced a white supremacist politician with evangelist Billy Graham.

Mississippi, however, has stood pat.

It is time that changed, said George's ancestor, Charles Sims of New Braunfels, Texas, a combat veteran, Ole Miss graduate and founder of The Dream 2020. “Racial hatred or racism shouldn't be honored.”

He would love to see Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery, take the place of George, a Civil War veteran, he said. “I'd like to replace a soldier with a soldier.”

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Charles Sims tells 's Jerry Mitchell he would like to see the statue of his great-great-great grandfather J.Z. George replaced.

Medgar Evers fought in Normandy and later became part of the Red Ball Express, a convoy system that used Army trucks to haul food, gasoline, ammunition and other supplies to U.S. forces as they raced across France.

When Evers returned home, he and his brother and other Black soldiers tried to vote, only to be turned away by white with guns. After that, he began battling in the movement and became the first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP.

Sims knows all about fighting. He spent more than eight years in the Army, much of it in combat in Iraq.

Many of those in his lineage, like George, were slave owners. Three of his ancestors signed the Mississippi Articles of Secession, which called for the state to secede from the nation: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of —the greatest material interest of the world.”

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Two years after the Civil War ended, Reconstruction began, and so did a reign of terror against Black Mississippians and those who supported them.

George became known as the “Great Redeemer” for his role in returning white supremacy to power after Reconstruction ended. That work culminated in the 1890 Constitution, designed to disenfranchise Black Mississippians through poll taxes and constitutional .

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” future Gov, and U.S. Sen. James K. Vardaman declared, “Mississippi's constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.”

The changes worked. Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. 

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Other Southern states followed Mississippi's , barring Black voters in every way they could. Grandfather clauses. White primaries. Violence. Voter intimidation.

“We cannot erase the past, but neither should we be a prisoner of it, either,” Sims said. “J.Z. George was the architect of the Jim Crow laws. I am not proud of this. … I think the statue should be removed from the Capitol because we cannot honor racial hatred.”

He said family members may not agree on whether the statue should be removed from Statuary Hall, but all agree that if that happens, the statue should home to the Cotesworth Plantation in Mississippi.

Leslie McLemore, who helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, said he would vote for civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer to take George's place at Statuary Hall.

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After 44 years as a sharecropper, she joined the movement and eventually captivated a nation with her story and her songs, he said. “She inspired a generation of people to get involved in the movement. To honor somebody like that is special.”

Sims said he once heard civil rights pioneer James Meredith, the first known Black American to attend the University of Mississippi, remark, “Mississippi is at the center of the universe, the center of the racial issue, the center of the poverty issue.”

Those words struck a chord with Sims. “I thought, ‘Wow, Mississippi could be the center of something.'”

Despite these days of division, Sims feels the winds of change.

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“I feel it is important to change the narrative about Mississippi and show that we have the ability to reach across party and racial lines in search of conflict resolution,” he said. “This is to highlight that we have the power to sit down and to people about the things that divide us.”

The past can be overcome, he said, “once people stop shouting at each other and begin listening to each other.”

Some people believe there's been so much hatred for so long that they can't reach out to a Black family because “they're not going to accept my hand in reconciliation,” he said. “Well, that's how I've done it, and I'm not close to done.”

He has met with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, all victims of violence. He also met with the niece of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat and sparked the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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Charles Sims, the great-great-great-grandson of Confederate icon J.Z. George, has met with Rosa Parks' niece,Shelia Keys. They are pictured here in front of Parks' statue in the U.S. Capitol. Credit: Courtesy of Charles Sims

“It's been truly amazing,” Sims said. “If I could do this as the great grandson of Jim Crow, what is anybody else's excuse?”

The truth is that people aren't willing to do what it takes to move the nation forward, he said. “If we value reconciliation, we have to be willing to put the hard work in to achieve it. If we value the dream, we have to be willing to live it and pray about it fully, not just talk about it fully.”

In his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered to those gathered at the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

When Sims heard those words, he said he felt they were aimed at him. “I think Dr. King sent me an invitation through history.”

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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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On this day in 1968

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-03-28 07:00:00

March 28, 1968

The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right, and Bishop Julian Smith, left, flank Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during a march in Memphis, Tenn., March 28, 1968. Credit: AP /Jack Thornell

Martin Luther King Jr. made his last march. Joined by Ralph Abernathy and James Lawson, King led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis. 

More than 1,300 workers had gone on strike after the deaths of two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, who took shelter in the back of the truck to avoid the frigid February rain. The white driver had refused to allow the two into the cab of the truck. Cole and Walker wound up getting crushed. 

“The two men's deaths left their wives and destitute,” Michael K. Honey wrote in “Going Down Jericho Road.” “A funeral home held the men's bodies until the families found a way to pay for their caskets.” 

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On strike, workers, who qualified for food stamps, demanded better pay and better conditions. The refused to recognize their union and, in response, hired strikebreakers. 

King spoke to them and others gathered: “You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a for people to in this rich nation and starvation wages.” 

King wound up halting the march when some broke windows and looted. He halted the march and vowed to have a nonviolent protest on April 5. He didn't live to see that day.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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