OXFORD – Ole Miss has consistently put itself in position to win tight games against ranked teams like Thursday’s vs. No. 15 Oklahoma. But holding onto late leads is going to take a little bit extra.
The Rebels led the Sooners by seven points in the fourth quarter, but the Sooners finished the game on a 22-5 run and took down the Rebels 66-56 at SJB Pavilion. The loss snaps the Rebels’s two-game winning streak.
After Ole Miss cut the deficit to 57-56 with 2:39 to play on a layup from senior forward Starr Jacobs, Oklahoma finished the game on a 9-0 run. The Rebels shot 35% from the field in the game and went 0 for 12 from 3-point range.
The Rebels found themselves in a fairly similar situation a few weeks ago, when they led then-No. 7 Texas by eight in the fourth quarter before ultimately falling 61-58.
“There’s some things that we’ve been harping on as a staff, and it’s still biting us in the butt,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “And until we can figure out how to manage that … we’re going to be in these situations where we wanted to win and just couldn’t do it.”
Oklahoma (17-6, 5-5) jumped out to an early 15-5 lead after Ole Miss (15-7, 6-4 SEC) missed seven of its first nine shots from the field. The Sooners led by 15 after the first quarter and hit 10 of 14 from the field in the period, including their last six attempts.
The Rebels made their move in the second quarter, scoring the first eight points of the period to cut the lead to seven. Ole Miss finished the final minute of the quarter on a 6-0 and cut the deficit down to two at halftime. The Rebels outscored Oklahoma 20-7 in the second – the Sooners’ lowest-scoring quarter of the season – and held them to just 3 of 11 from the field. The teams turned the ball over a combined 31 times in the first half.
“We just didn’t start off the way we wanted to. I can’t really tell you exactly what it was, but we just weren’t – we just didn’t have it there,” junior forward Christeen Iwuala said. “But the ability to respond and do whatever we can to hold it together for the rest of the 40 is what we can do.”
Ole Miss took its first lead of the night two-and-a-half minutes into the third quarter on an acrobatic layup by senior forward Starr Jacobs. With the game tied at 43 and time running out in the quarter, Iwuala made a layup with 3 seconds remaining to give the Rebels a two-point lead heading into the fourth.
The Rebels extended their lead to seven less than three minutes into the fourth on a jumper from Scott. But Oklahoma proceeded to go on a 10-0 run over the next two-plus minutes to retake the lead. Holding onto a one-point lead 1:43 to play, Oklahoma’s Payton Verhulst hit a dagger 3-pointer to start the run of nine-straight Sooners points. Ole Miss did not score over the final 2:39 of the game.
Jacobs led the Rebels with 15 points while Scott, Iwuala and freshman guard Sira Thienou scored 12, 11 and 10 points, respectively. Verhulst led Oklahoma with 19 points and 10 rebounds.
“You can’t cry about it. But we’re playing these ranked teams, and we have to show a level of toughness,” McPhee-McCuin said. “And until we do that, we’re not going to come up with a victory.”
Ole Miss hosts No. 11 Kentucky on Monday at 6 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
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