No. 17 Ole Miss did not have its best showing against Southern as it secured its fourth-straight win
Throughout a season there are going to be games where a team is just kind of getting by and going through the motions despite being the better of the two teams competing. This could be true for No. 17 Ole Miss on Tuesday.
While not pretty at times, the Rebels men’s basketball team defeated Southern, 74-61, to remain undefeated at home. A win is a win is a win, as they say.
For Chris Beard, it was a win that he is happy with and was not in any mood to disregard the opponent Ole Miss just faced.
“That’s a quality team. You can’t make this up,” Beard said. “A lot of times everybody gets caught up with kind of what’s on the jersey. You put those same players and that same coach in SEC jerseys and everybody’s walking out of here probably excited we won the game tonight. So we’re pleased we won the game.”
That said, the Rebels (10-1) did not have their best showing.
Sloppy with the basketball and committing a season-high 17 turnovers was the biggest issue. Luckily for Ole Miss the Jaguars (5-5) managed only 16 points off of them.
Beard was also unhappy with the rebounding effort, which has been a season-long work in progress for the second-year head coach. Southern out-rebounded the Rebels 38-36 and also in offensive rebounds by a tally of 12-11.
“I think what we learned is we got to continue to execute the plan,” Beard added. “We’re trying to be come a better rebounding team and tonight, the bottom line is we didn’t get it done. We tried to take care of the ball. It’s been an early part of our identity and tonight was our worst performance in terms of just turnovers.”
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Jaylen “JuJu” Murray led all scorers with 18 points followed by Jaemyn Brakefield‘s 15 points and Dre Davis added 14 points.
Ole Miss injury update
For a third straight game Matthew Murrell did not dress out, battling a lower body injury.
Once again Beard classified Murrell’s status as day-to-day. The senior guard has not played since the game at Louisville on December 3.
“I’m hopeful that he’ll be able to play before Christmas,” Beard said. “He’s been practicing a little bit more lately. The goal is to get him back when he’s as close to healthy as he can be. Matt wants to play. He’s spending a lot of time in the training room. …I’m hopeful that he’ll play in our next game.”
The next game being Saturday against Queens at 4 p.m. CT at home. After that it’s a week off for Christmas break then at No. 21 Memphis on December 28 to close out the non-conference schedule.
