It’s a simple phrase that helped Southern Miss do the unthinkable.

Forty-nine days ago, the men’s basketball team was crowned Sun Belt Regular Season Champions. Fourth-year head coach Jay Ladner successfully guided his alma mater from the bottom – literally – to the top. It took a rebuild and culture change to get there, but it happened. Below is the origin of La Familiaand the rise to the top.

Ladner hit the portal hard. Williams helped land Ole Miss transfer Austin Crowley. Cardona used his international ties to land the likes of Felipe Haase and Neftali Alvarez from Mercer. The staff also went out and got Donovan Ivory, Nico Aguirre, GianFranco Grafals, Victor Hart and Marcelo Perez. Most importantly, Ladner retained players like DeAndre Pinckney, Mo Arnold, Tyler Morman, Denijay Harris, Tate Ryder, Jeffery Armstrong and Trey Alfonso. Those players knew what to expect and helped shape what was to come for Southern Miss.

With the roster built, La Familia was also well under construction. The group started with intense summer workouts that carried over into preseason workouts that had the expectations soaring. There was only one thing left to do – play basketball. Every Division I basketball program envisions a perfect start to the season. For Southern Miss, that reality lasted eight games and made them one of the last undefeated teams in the country. It began with the usual early-November game against William Carey that went how it should have as the Golden Eagles cruised to a 75-42 win.

And then the big test came: a non-conference game at Vanderbilt on Nov. 11. Thirty-five years prior, Ladner went into Memorial Gymnasium as player and beat the Commodores en route to Southern Miss’ 1987 NIT title.

It went just as Crowley and the rest of the Golden Eagles thought it would, a 60-48 win against a formidable SEC foe. It was where the three-headed monster of Haase, Crowley and Pinckney was born. They each went for 10-plus points and ultimately ended the season as Southern Miss’ only players to average at least 10 points per game.

After a quick beat down of Loyola New Orleans three days later, focus shifted to Liberty. In 1,696 days, Liberty had lost only five games on its home court – that’s a 59-5 record since March 28, 2018. It was going to take a perfect storm for the Golden Eagles to escape Lynchburg victorious.

Fortunately for Southern Miss, that’s just what happened. The Golden Eagles erupted to a 17-point halftime lead and would lead by as many as 26 in the second half. Liberty then gutted out a 26-0 run to tie the game with five minutes to play. That’s when the famous Hasse floater happened.

The big man took a pass in the post with his back to the basket, then turned around and threw up a high-arching shot. As the Golden Eagle bench waited in agony for it to drop, Haase ran back down the floor without a doubt.

“I knew it was going to splash as soon as it left my hand,” Haase said.

Ballgame. Haase and Crowley combined for 48 points as Southern Miss headed to Cancun, Mexico with a 4-0 start in its suitcase. The winning ways continued at the Cancun Challenge as Southern Miss coasted past Winthrop and Purdue Fort Wayne. The perks of winning in Cancun? Living like Kings – at least that what Haase did.

“We were living our best life,” the Chilean big man said. “We had everything. You could call at 3 a.m. and ask for a hamburger. We were living like Kings.”

The self-proclaimed Kings kept winning. That is until Southern Miss met its demons, specifically Northwestern State. The Demons were humming after a win at then-No. 15 TCU started a seven-game winning streak. Game six in that stretch was Southern Miss.

The Golden Eagles were riding the high of Cancun and a revenge win against Montana, but that all ended on Dec. 4. The Demons pierced the hearts of Southern Miss’ undefeated start as Demarcus Sharp drained a game-winning floater as the clock struck zero.

It was defeating, but the goal was still the same leaving Natchitoches – keep on winning. And boy, they kept winning. The Golden Eagles reeled off three-straight blowout wins before heading to Sin City before the holiday break.

This was another opportunity for a signature win. And that’s where they met their demons again – this time the Rebels. Like many do, Southern Miss left Las Vegas empty-handed. Still, they were 11-2, so not all was bad in The Greenhouse heading into conference play.

The Greenhouse continued to be a safe haven for Southern Miss. Early Sun Belt games against Troy and App State went in favor of the Golden Eagles. Then came a signature win against South Alabama on a Thursday night in mid-January. The hype got real when perennial power James Madison came to town, and that’s when Ladner started to see the Reed Green Coliseum of old.

“I was told early on that the days of filling up Reed Green were over,” Ladner said. “We started with a few hundred and each game it continued to build. And after Christmas, it got loud in there. I remember walking out against James Madison and really seeing that number jump up.”

That win gave Southern Miss its second-best home start in the last 20 seasons. It didn’t stop there as it followed with two more wins against Arkansas State and Texas State the following weekend. The historic start in Hattiesburg continued to garner more buzz.

Then came the peak – 8,097 fans inside the domed building on 4th Street. On Feb. 9, Southern Miss hosted Louisiana in front of the fifth-largest crowd in program history. And the show lived up to the hype.

“We sold out an arena,” Donovan Ivory said. “It was empty early in the season and now there wasn’t a seat left. There wasn’t much that could stop us.”

Pinckney delivered a dunk in the final minute of the game that blew the roof off the Coliseum as the Golden Eagles secured an 11-point win. It moved them to 13-0 at home with two to play there. They would go on to grab wins over ULM and Georgia Southern to finish the best home season in program history. 15-0. History. They still weren’t done rewriting the history book yet. It came down to the final week – a trip to Old Dominion and Texas State. All Southern Miss had to do was win.

Well, it didn’t. At least not at Old Dominion. The Monarchs held on to win by five and Southern Miss flew to Texas State needing a miracle to happen. Fortunately, that miracle was answered.

The bottom line was that Southern Miss needed Marshall to lose at Old Dominion. From there, it was up to Southern Miss. A win would make the Golden Eagles outright regular season champs and a loss would deliver a share of the title.

They cruised into halftime with a 12-point lead. Marshall? Old Dominion had just knocked off the Thundering Herd to deliver a lightning strike to the Sun Belt. Twenty minutes and a conference title was coming back to Hattiesburg. The players, though, had no idea what Old Dominion had just done.

Except for a few.

“We all knew what needed to happen,” Crowley said. “In the first half we were telling each other to just play, just keep playing. People kept saying don’t check your phones. The funny thing is, though, Nef is looking at me with this look. He kept looking at me with it. And I kind of got the gist of it, but as we were walking out, he told me we have to win it – this is the one.”

The one it was. Twenty minutes went by and Southern Miss was the Sun Belt Regular Season Champion. It was just the second time it was the outright title winner. It also gave the Golden Eagles their 25th win, the most in a regular season in program history. Southern Miss brought postseason basketball back to Hattiesburg for the first time under Ladner. The Sun Belt Tournament and NIT didn’t go as planned, but that is life. As Haase left it, postseason basketball is hard.

“Our goal wasn’t the NIT,” Haase said. “We had a goal of winning the NCAA Tournament. That’s how much faith we had. We fell short, but it’s a privilege to have played in the NIT. It didn’t work out how we wanted, just how life doesn’t. But it’s special. It’s hard, man. Everyone is playing their best basketball in the postseason.

Not every box was checked. The rest of the boxes are left for the next team to check off. One thing is for certain though, the 2022-23 Southern Miss men’s basketball team will never be forgotten in Hattiesburg.

La Familia brought together a group of basketball players. It brought together a team. It brought together a community.

“This is just the beginning of what basketball at Southern Miss could be,” Crowley said.