Ole Miss men’s basketball falls short to Texas A&M 80-76 Wednesday night.
Breein Tyree attempts drives the ball towards the basket.
From the time Wednesday night’s game tipped off, Texas A&M put its stake the painted area and owned it throughout. It equated to an 80-76 win that dropped Ole Miss to 12-8 (3-5) on the year.
The Aggies out-rebounded Ole Miss 39-23 and compiled 44 points in the paint. Robert Williams has 15 points and 14 rebounds, and 6-foot-10-inch center Tyler Davis added 20 points. The Rebels simply had no answer for the Aggie big men all night. Couple that with 15 first-half points from Admon Gilder, who had 22 in the game, the Rebels were in trouble from the start.
“When you allow an SEC opponent to come in your building, with their leading scorer over there in a boot, and they shoot 51 percent from the field, score 80 and get as many offensive rebounds as you have defensive rebounds, it’s a miracle that we were in the game,” head coach Andy Kennedy said.
For as badly as Ole Miss had struggled to find offense this season, it came in bunches Wednesday night and was certainly not the reoccurring issue it has been. The Rebels shot 27-55 from the the field and made 11 three-pointers. They put up 39 in the opening half, and three different guys scored at least 15 points. Terence Davis and Sebastian Saiz had 19 points respectively, and Deandre Burnett had 16. The difference? Ole Miss didn’t win the war on the glass. Saiz had seven rebounds. Davis had two, and Justas Furmanavicius had just two in 32 minutes. Texas A&M pulled 23 defensive rebounds, the same number Ole Miss had total.
“We just couldn’t come up with the big stop. It seemed like every time we needed it – and they gave us opportunities – they had a stretch where they missed four or five shots, yet retained possession of the ball,” Kennedy said. “We can’t get the ball, and you need to get the ball to win.”
A simple glance on paper would show that the Aggies were bigger up front, but Ole Miss didn’t do a good job combatting that. Davis and Williams caught the ball a few feet from the basket time and time again. It’s largely why Texas A&M shot 62 percent in the first half and grabbed a 47-39 advantage at the break.
“The fight has to be earlier. You cannot allow them to touch it so close to the rim,” Kennedy said.
Ole Miss scrapped and clawed its way back slowly in the second half. It cut the deficit to two a handful of times but could not parlay it into a defensive stop. Cullen Neal’s three-pointer with a little more than a minute left tied the game at 73, but A&M distanced itself enough in the final minute to earn the win.
We were fortunate down the stretch and made big free throws and got big rebounds,” Texas A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said.
A bright spot for Ole Miss was the play of Terence Davis, who put up double figures for a third consecutive game but picked up an early fourth foul and was forced to sit for a good chunk of time down the stretch.
“I play the game with so much emotion,” Davis said. “So any time I have to sit on the bench and can’t help my team, it takes a toll on me.”
The loss puts Ole Miss further behind the eight ball in the SEC standings and in terms of earning a birth to the NCAA tournament. It doesn’t get any easier with fifth-ranked Baylor coming to town on Saturday. But for a team that’s struggled to find its footing this season, and has had to reinvent itself a number of times, the big picture is not what’s on its mind.
“Our view has never been anything other than ‘Guys, we have got to get better,’” Andy Kenendy said. “We are not talking big picture. We’ve got to get better.”
