Shelby Gibson owned the paint in Gainesville on Monday night, and it was one of the key reasons why Ole Miss snapped a 13-game road SEC losing streak that bled into three different seasons. The 16 point, six rebound performance was also enough to earn Gibson SEC freshman of the week honors for the second time this season.
It was a much-needed win for an Ole Miss team that has won back-to-back SEC games for the first time this season. The Rebels endured a rugged front end of their SEC schedule, dropping six of their first eight conference conference games. Four of the initial six games came on the road against the likes of currently third-ranked Mississippi State, sixth-ranked South Carolina and Tennessee.
The Rebels took control of the game by opening the second quarter on a 12-0 run, a stretch that included three pointers from Gibson, Madinah Muhammed and Shandricka Sessum. That trio was potent on Monday night as Muhammed dropped 22 and Sessum scored 18 in addition to Gibson’s 16.
Florida made a couple of runs at the Rebels in the second half and cut the deficit to two in the fourth quarter, but Ole Miss did the little things necessary to win on the road–like going 5-5 from the free-throw line in the game’s final minutes. It was an important win on the surface as it pulled the Rebels to 15-8 on the year and 4-6 in SEC play. But it was also another notch in the belt for Matt Insell’s team that survived that rugged and front-loaded schedule.
The win guaranteed the Rebels a winning season, just the second since 2010. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment for a program that isn’t far removed from being riddled with NCAA sanctions involving the previous coaching staff. Insell has brought in some young talent into Oxford and is building upon it, even if the results don’t always show on the scoreboard.
There are more winnable games left on the schedule, and Ole Miss has a chance to continue to build momentum in the season’s final stretch.
