The Rebels (18-13) used early energy and an offense that was firing on all cylinders for the whole game to put away the regular season Ohio Valley Conference champion UT Martin Skyhawks (22-11) 80-70 in the first round of the WNIT on Wednesday night.
“Great win. Every time you get a win in this time of year, it’s big,” head coach Matt Insell said. “UT Martin won the OVC, and I don’t care what league you’re in. If you go undefeated in your league, you don’t have a bad basketball team.
“I’m really happy to get the win. I’ll tell you that and we played good in spurts,” Insell said. “We had a lot of young kids that were playing minutes.”
The bright lights of the postseason didn’t faze Ole Miss at all. Playing in their first postseason game since the 2008-09 season, the Rebels relished every bit and came out hot.
With the game tied at 20 with 8:17 left in the first half, the Rebels used a 9-0 run to push their lead out to 29-20 over the next three minutes.
By the end of the first half, Ole Miss had stretched their lead to 39-27 over UT Martin. The Rebels shot 54 percent in the half, their highest percentage in any half since the game against Alabama on Jan. 11, where they shot 62 percent.
UT Martin boasts the nation’s fourth leading scorer in sophomore forward Ashia Jones, as she scores 24.2 points per game. Ole Miss held her to 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting at halftime and only finished with 17 points, but on 6-of-17 shooting.
Ole Miss came out on fire in the second half as the Rebels made five of their first six shots, including back-to-back 3-pointers by sophomore guard Erika Sisk and freshman forward Kelsey Briggs.
They used their hot shooting to run the lead up to 56-35 with 14:16 left in the game.
The Rebels were in cruise control at that point, but UT Martin would not fold, as they used a 14-0 run to get the deficit to seven points at 56-49, but it was the closest they got.
After they cut the lead down to seven, junior guard Gracie Frizzel hit a three to go up 59-49, and the Rebels never looked back as they had to withstand 13 second half turnovers to put the Warhawks away.
Ole Miss finished the game shooting over 57 percent in the second half and over 55 percent for the game.
One of the reasons for the hot performance from Ole Miss was Briggs. She finished with a career-high 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting and grabbed six rebounds.
Sisk contributed with 16 points, senior forward Tia Faleru had 12 points and 5 rebounds, and freshman Kiara Golden had 8 points.
“I just prepared in practice, and my teammates and my coaches kept me up,” Briggs said. “When my number was called, I just went in and played.”
Ole Miss advances to the second round of the WNIT and will face the winner of the Georgia Tech vs. Elon game, which will be played at 7 p.m. E.T. today in Atlanta.
