No. 16 Ole Miss fails to close it out in last-second loss to No. 13 Texas A&M

Chris Beard and his staff break games down into 10 four-minute segments and the final segment of No. 16 Ole Miss’ game against No. 13 Texas A&M on Wednesday is going to be a hard one to swallow.

With 13 seconds remaining Manny Obaseki hit a three-pointer to give the Aggies the lead for the first time all game. Jaemyn Brakefield missed a layup and the Rebels were not able to get another shot off in the final five seconds in the 63-62 loss.

Brakefield hit a layup with 3:49 remaining and that was the final shot made by Ole Miss (15-4, 4-2 Southeastern Conference) the rest of the game. The Rebels missed their last four shots and the only points came from three free throws by Brakefield and Matthew Murrell.

Davon Barnes missed the first of his one-and-ones with 19 seconds left that would have at least tied the game or given the Rebels a one-point edge if he converted both. The Aggies (15-4, 4-2) rebound of Barnes missed attempt led to Obaseki’s game-winning shot on the ensuing possession.

Another symptom of the loss were the three turnovers by Ole Miss in the final 69 seconds of the game that led to four Texas A&M points.

“Obviously a tough one tonight. We got a hurt locker room,” Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said. “Thought we did everything we needed to do to win the game. Game’s kind of mathematically over if can just inbound the ball, make one or two passes and absorb their foul. Hit a decent percentage of free throws. Too many unforced turnovers in the last three to four minutes of the game”

Offense was an issue for the Rebels all night but the biggest struggle were attempts late in the shot clock. Ole Miss only had 18 points in the paint and the majority of their offense came from around or outside of the perimeter.

They shot 31 percent from three-point range, making 11 of the 35 attempts, and just under 37 percent from the floor (24-65). When it came to offense inside Ole Miss missed four out of only 10 layup attempts.

“Thought we got some decent shots during (the final four-minute) stretch but I also thought we had way too many late shot clock situations,” Beard said. “We certainly weren’t even talking about time at that time. We were actually talking about quite the opposite, stay aggressive.

“Their soft press kind of nags at you so you’re going to be playing with a 20-second shot clock, not 30. But I thought during that stretch we just had too many possessions, you think about our team we were in more late shot clock more than we have been all season.”

Ole Miss made it to the free-three line three times for the entire game, all coming in the second half.

Through the first three-fourths of the game free trips to the charity stripe were not even needed for the Rebels to secure another win over a Top 15 team, but the opportunities would have been helpful.

Not a lot of fouls were being called on either team in the first 20 minutes. The Aggies went to the line only once, splitting their two attempts. In the second half it was a different story with the foul discrepancy 8-1 in favor of the Rebels for most of the last 20 minutes.

Texas A&M went 6-for-7 from the line to Ole Miss’ 3-for-4.

Beard did not want to comment directly on the game’s officiating but did present his observation from the sideline.

“I would just say that it’s two physical teams playing and it was really hard to understand and comprehend from where I was sitting that we played 16-17 minutes of SEC basketball and there’s only one foul on the opponent,” Beard said.

“So we’ll have to study the tape and see. These are the best officials in college basketball, period. So it’s never about that. But it was a puzzling stat. …No fouls off the ball, 17 minutes of an SEC game. That was puzzling.”