The conditions looked favorable for an upset for a while on Saturday night. A lively crowd watched Ole Miss (12-9, 3-5) put No. 5 Baylor (20-1, 7-1) on the ropes, up 10 points with 14 minutes remaining in the game. The Rebels had perhaps their best chance at a quality win to add to their resume while simultaneously christening The Pavilion with its first signature moment. But rebounding and execution failed them down the stretch and the Bears escaped Oxford with a 78-75 victory.
Ole Miss held a 72-70 lead with 2:16 left on the clock, but three costly turnovers in the final minutes marred an otherwise cleanly played game by Ole Miss on the offensive end, and doomed its chances.
(Photo by: Cameron Brooks)
“What’s crazy is that we had one turnover at the half,” head coach Andy Kennedy said. “You’ve seen all of our games, it’s been problematic for us. As Breein Tyree has evolved into more of a primary ball-handler I think it has solved some of our issues, and we had four big ones down the stretch.”
Tyree had 18 of his 20 points in the second half, and kept the Rebels in the game despite the struggles of Deandre Burnett, who was just 1-10 from the field and tallied four points. Kennedy ran a lot of high ball screens for Tyree, and it allowed him to penetrate and get to the rim and foul line. Ole Miss was 22-23 from the free throw line on the night.
“Winning one-on-ones is not a lot of basketball terminology, but we use it a lot. You start saying, ‘Well we need to win this match up.’ Well he’s going up against an all-league caliber point guard and an older kid in number 20 (Manu Lecomte) and I thought he did a great job for us just keeping us in it,” Kennedy said of his freshman point guard.
But eventually Baylor overwhelmed Ole Miss with its size, winning the rebounding margin 37-27 and scoring 16 second-chance points. The Bears grabbed 13 offensive rebounds.
“This is the second game in a row at home where we get destroyed on the glass, and you’re not going to win against quality teams,” Kennedy said. “Texas A&M beats us around 15 on the glass. They had 16 offensive rebounds. Today, we were minus 1o on the glass and they got 13 offensive rebounds. You’re not going to beat the second ranked team in the country in that regard.”
All was well early on for Ole Miss. It controlled the tempo of the game. The players were making shots and the Rebels’ 1-3-1 and 2-3 zones were giving Baylor trouble. Ole Miss led 42-35 at halftime. Sebastian Saiz had 18 first-half points and was giving the Bears fits.
Breein Tyree (Photo by: Cameron Brooks)
But Baylor was more effective against the zone in the second half, shooting 53.8 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes. It forced the Rebels to play man-to-man, which got them in foul trouble. Saiz picked up his fourth foul with more than nine minutes remaining. It forced Ole Miss to revert back to the zone, which certainly did not help its rebounding efforts. Baylor quickly shaved the deficit to down to five at 54-49, then it got to two, and then Baylor took its first lead of the game with 10 minutes to go at 56-54 in the midst of a 20-6 run.
Johnathan Motley and Jo Lual-Acuil Jr scored 16 points each for Baylor and Lecomte Manu led with 17.
“I know with our team, we’ve got really good leadership and good veterans. When you get down on the road and don’t have that, you’re probably not coming back,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said. “So even though we didn’t execute as well as we would have liked, I think Ole Miss deserves a lot of credit for that. I thought they had a great came plan. The crowd was great, but I’m really proud of us keeping our poise.”
Baylor began to double Saiz, and it was effective as the senior forward scored just four points in the second half. Tyree did his best to keep the Rebels alive, but there wasn’t enough offensive behind them. Ole Miss shot just 33.3 percent in the second half, going 8-24 from the field.
“I was being a little bit more aggressive in attacking the rim and trying to get to the line, and the ball was going in so good things happened,” Tyree said.
It was frustrating defeat that spoiled a valiant effort from a team that is struggling to find its identity. The reoccurring issues emerged once more and helped produce a bitter ninth loss for Ole Miss.
“I’m proud of my guys’ effort. I thought they played really hard,” Kennedy said. “If they’ll play this hard for the remainder of the season, then we’ll win some more games.”
