TUPELO – After beating Southern Miss by just four points in Biloxi, the Rebels won their second consecutive in-state, neutral-site game more comfortably.
Malik Dia led Ole Miss with 27 points, and the Rebels came away with an 80-66 win over Alabama A&M at Cadence Bank Arena in Tupelo Wednesday night.
“I don’t know if it was their gameplan or what, but Dia can shoot the ball, so he gets a couple of wide-open threes early,” Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said. “Think the basket got big for him. We want Dia shooting those shots at the right time, the right situation. He’s a good shooter. I thought he was aggressive going to the basket tonight, too.”
It was Dia’s night in the early going. Dia knocked down three three-pointers in the first five minutes to help give Ole Miss (7-4) an early 16-8 lead and kick-start a white-hot first half.
A free throw and a jumper from Dia were the beginning of a 10-0 run for Ole Miss, and the Rebels took a 30-17 lead with 8:22 remaining in the first half. Seventeen of Dia’s 27 points came in the first half. Ole Miss went into halftime with a 44-29 lead after shooting 65.4 percent from the field and 60 percent from behind the arc in the first half.
“I’ve always been a guy to recognize who’s passing the ball, who’s spacing, who’s screening for him because Malik can do that,” Beard said. “Malik can start every game and get some wide-open threes, he’ll make those, he’ll make a good percentage.”
With Ole Miss leading by 13 early in the second half, the Rebels went on an 11-2 run to push the lead to 22 points. That was an insurmountable deficit for Alabama A&M (6-5), and Ole Miss cruised to victory from there. However, Alabama A&M managed to narrowly outscore Ole Miss 37-36 in the second half.
Behind Dia, AJ Storr had 14 points, six rebounds and four assists, while Ilias Kamardine had a team-high eight assists and just one turnover.
“That was the gameplan: get to the paint every time before finding the wide-open shot,” Kamardine said. “I think I approached the game with the right mentality to try to find my teammate and before (that) just get to the paint.”
Ole Miss playing two games around the state at neutral sites is part of Beard’s vision for the program.
“I think these games make a lot of sense,” Beard said. “We have alumni, we have donors, we have fans in different parts of the state that can’t always get to Oxford every season. So, yes, I think it’s a plan of our program moving forward that we want to play basketball in the state of Mississippi where our fans can see us.”
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