NASHVILLE — The Rebels, playing with “house money” at the SEC tournament in Nashville, looked to close a three-point Tennessee lead with under 30 seconds left in the first half.
Like in their last meeting in Oxford, Ole Miss men’s basketball was more than ready for the challenge and went shot-for-shot in the opening 20 minutes.
However, bad shot selection from Myles Burns and a lost offensive rebound resulted in an empty possession and 10 seconds for the Vols to strike before the buzzer.
They did just that as Josiah-Jordan James buried an open corner three at the buzzer to go up six at the half, ending it on a 10-2 run. After that point, Ole Miss couldn’t find its stride, scoring just 22 second-half points as Tennessee coasted to a 70-55 second round victory.
“The one thing that we talked about in our scouting of Tennessee is that we can’t let those guys get going from the 3-point line, and I thought they did that,” Ole Miss head coach Win Case said. “That’s something we never could corral.”
Tennessee made its mark from the perimeter in the first half, shooting 7 of 15 from three as Josiah Jordan-James and Santiago Vescovi combined to shoot 5 of 11.
Jordan-James led the Vols in the first half with 11 points, finishing with a game-high 20 points, and Ole Miss (12-21) couldn’t find an answer for him, but kept itself in the game.
That 10-2 run to end the first half compounded into a 17-4 run as Tennessee (23-9) opened the second half on a 7-2 run.
“We did have plays that worked previously in our last battle against Tennessee,” senior forward Robert Allen said postgame. “Like coach always said, we wanted our defense to develop our offense and I feel like that’s what worked for us in the first half. In the second half, a lack of our defense led to a lack of our offense.”
Ole Miss didn’t shoot lights-out in the first half, shooting 41.4% from the field, but their three-point game shined unlike during the regular season, shooting 45.5% (5-of-11) in the half.
However, that success disappeared in the second half, with the Rebs shooting 8-of-24 from the field and struggling from three at just 22.2% (2-of-9).
“We’ve had this problem all year long,” Case said. “We’ve run into droughts scoring and for whatever reason, when it happened, it reared its ugly head today in terms of not making timely shots and we ran into that drought again…We knew good shots were going to be hard to find.”
Ole Miss didn’t have trouble finding points in transition as the Rebels led in the category on Thursday, scoring 17 fast-break points compared to Tennessee, who finished with two.
After their initial outburst in the second half, the Vols didn’t fare much better offensively, held to just 31 points on 36.4% shooting, but the Rebs going on multiple scoring drought of two minutes or more allowed the lead to reach a breaking point for hopes of a comeback.
“They’re a mature, physical team,” senior forward Myles Burns said. “They know how to make adjustments. They know how to adapt and that’s the reason why they’re one of the top teams in this league. That played a big part of that, but also shot selections. We were forcing too many shots.”
It was a tumultuous season for Ole Miss, one that featured a significant coaching change and plenty of ups-and-downs, leading to a tough exit on Thursday.
Case, promoted to interim head coach not even three weeks ago, had his tenure in Oxford end short, but the opportunity to coach made the experience all the more memorable.
“I just want to thank Keith, our athletic director, for giving me this opportunity to be interim coach at Ole Miss, which is a special place,” Case said. “I love that place. My family loves Oxford. It’s just a special place.”
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