Ole Miss had a red-hot start to Southeastern Conference action, including a top-five win on the road, but the pendulum has since swung in the wrong with the Rebels losing three straight games. An 83-75 defeat at Missouri was the latest shortfall.
Tamar Bates had 26 points and Chris Grill scored 22 for Missouri (16-4, 5-2 SEC) in a home win versus Ole Miss (15-5, 4-3 SEC), which lacked starting forward Dre Davis who had an undisclosed injury.
The Rebels, fueled by a pair of triples from Sean Pedulla and Jaylen Murray, jumped off to a quick 8-0 lead in Saturday night’s matchup, but the led home team countered with a 12-0 run to get back on top. Bates led the Tigers’ effort, scoring nine points in a two-minute stretch.
Grill began to heat up from deep and knocked down a trio of three-pointers to put Missouri up by nine with 6:23 left in the half. Efforts by Ole Miss to eat into the deficit proved fruitless and the Tigers led 38-31 at the intermission.
Ole Miss dug itself into a hole early in the second half and trailed by nine points at the 16:46 mark as Bates continued to shine. The Rebels’ struggles were highlighted on the defensive end with Missouri being sent to the free-throw line on a consistent basis.
But a five-minute stretch of clean basketball by Ole Miss put the Rebels within three points on the scoreboard with 10:15 on the clock. A triple by none other than Grill gave Dennis Gates’ team momentum and Missouri mounted a 16-5 run, which essentially put the game out of reach.
The Tigers improved to a perfect 15-0 at home this year after walking away an 83-75 victor and the Rebels dropped their third contest in a row. Malik Dia led Ole Miss with 17 points and eight rebounds in the loss.
In what has been a thematic trend, Ole Miss was dominated on the glass. Missouri won the rebounding battle 39-28 and had eight second-chance points. The Tigers also attempted 21 more free throws. 22 of the home team’s 45 second-half points were at the charity stripe.
Ole Miss won the turnover battle and doubled the Tigers’ production in the paint. However, Missouri was 44% from deep and had 33 points from three-point range, whereas the Rebels were 30% from behind the arc and scored 18.
Next up for Ole Miss is a Wednesday night battle against Texas — head coach Chris Beard’s former employer. The game will tip-off from the SJB Pavilion at 8 p.m. CT and will be aired on ESPN2 as well as participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations.
