Mississippi guard Stefan Moody dribbles the ball in Wednesday night’s game against Texas A&M. (DM Photo | Logan Kirkland)
Ole Miss used an impressive defensive performance and timely shots down the stretch to win a big game against Texas A&M by a score of 69-59.
“Tremendous defensive effort for us in the second half. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing at times, but these are the kind of games you got to win in early February,” Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy said. “These are the games you got to grind through in order to achieve your goal.”
Ole Miss fought through the first half, as they got off to a good start, going on a 9-4 run in the opening three minutes and then followed that up with another 9-4 run to go up by 18-10.
The Aggies would respond to the runs by the Rebels, going on a 12-1 run of their own to go up 22-19.
The first half was a struggle offensively for both teams, as the Aggies and the Rebels shot below 25 percent. Both teams started to heat up a little bit near the end of the half with the Rebels shooting 36.4 percent and the Aggies shooting 42.5 percent.
“We were missing point blank looks. In the first half, we were 0-for-12 from the three and honestly, I thought most of them were clean looks,” Kennedy said. “In the second half, we made enough to give us separation.”
The game featured trading baskets up until halftime, as the Rebels would hit their last 4-out-5 three pointers to close the half after missing their first 12.
Ole Miss would gain the halftime lead at 33-32. Senior guard Jarvis Summers went scoreless in the first half for the second straight game.
Junior guard Stefan Moody would pace the Rebels in the first half with 13 points and sophomore forward Sebastian Saiz had four points and five rebounds.
Junior guards Jalen Jones and Danuel House, Texas A&M’s leading scorers, were held to a combined 11 points and 4-for-11 shooting in the first half. Junior guard Alex Caruso led the Aggies with eight points.
Ole Miss opened up the second half hot, going on a 17-6 run over the first seven minutes to go up 50-38. A big part of that was the Ole Miss frontcourt as they made life difficult on the Aggies defensively and offensively.
Senior forward M.J. Rhett finished with 11 points, Saiz had nine points and nine rebounds and sophomore center Dwight Coleby finished with seven points and six rebounds.
“We just get more reps in practice and keep grinding it out and going hard in practice,” Rhett said on why they are playing so well defensively. “Just focusing the task at hand.”
The Aggies would respond though, going on an 11-2 to bring the game to 53-50 with just over eight minutes to play. In a game full of runs, the Rebels went on the last one, a 10-4 run in response, to go up for good 63-54 with 3:26 left to play.
That was all the Rebels needed to pull away, as Ole Miss used suffocating defense and free throws to put the game away.
“We throw the kitchen sink at you defensively,” Kennedy said.
Doing that allowed Ole Miss to contain the Aggies best penetrators, Caruso and House, to not get anything close to the rim and keep Jones from getting any open looks down low.
“The zone against them was concerning because I thought that Caruso with his size could see over the top,” Kennedy said. “We went with a little different game plan and put Moody on him, and we wanted to play under him and to harass him. I did think it threw him off his game.”
The Rebels were led by Moody, with 19 points on 6-of-14 shooting, and Summers scored seven points, all in the second half. Senior guard Terrance Smith has eight points off the bench.
Kennedy said he was impressed with the way. Rhett played down low, and he was really satisfied with his frontcourt production as a whole. The three collectively went 11-for-20 from the field.
The team has two road games coming up in the next two weeks at Auburn and Florida.
Ole Miss looks to continue their road success and four-game-winning streak at Auburn this Saturday at 5:30 CT.
