No. 19 Ole Miss takes care of Southern Mississippi as Chris Beard earns win No. 200
Ole Miss is getting used to playing games on a neutral site, which is something head coach Chris Beard wanted to see as the non-conference schedule was constructed to get his team ready for a March run.
Saturday’s 31-point win over Southern Mississippi in Biloxi was another example of the 19th-ranked Rebels being comfortable away from the SJB Pavilion.
Ole Miss (9-1) defeated the Golden Eagles (4-6) 77-46 inside the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and it was also career win No. 200 for Beard. This was the third win out of four attempts on a neutral court for the Rebels in the first 10 games of the season.
Beard was more focused on how his team took care of things, specifically on the defensive end of the court. Southern Mississippi’s 46 points is the lowest point total allowed by Ole Miss this season.
A 16-2 start to the game helped the Rebels control things for 40 minutes. The Golden Eagles shot 33 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 17 times, leading to 24 points for Ole Miss.
The Rebels took a 10-point lead into halftime.
“We knew it was going to be another 20 minute game. We’ve seen coach Ladner’s teams do this a lot,” Beard said. “They’re never going to stop playing. The message at halftime was to stay the course defensively. Offensively we had possessions where we were standing around too much against their zone. We encouraged them to stay aggressive offensively.”
Ole Miss stretched things out in the second half and Southern Miss never really got close coming out of the locker room.
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One reason for that was due to the play of guard Sean Pedulla who finished with a game-high 18 points. Pedulla shot 60 percent and all six of his made shots were from beyond the three-point line. He also added a pair of rebounds and four assists to the stat line.
“What I would say about Sean today is that I thought he was aggressive on defense and competitive on defense,” Beard said. “Like it happens in our sport, that will bleed into the other end. Thinking about the right things, getting stops, playing team defense. I noticed his extra intensity on defense today. It bled into his offensive performance today.”
Jaylen ‘JuJu’ Murray finished with 14 points and Jaemyn Brakefield add 10 points as the only other Rebels to finish in double figures. Murray tied Pedulla with a game-high four assists.
Senior guard Matt Murrell sat out his second straight game due to an injury that has not been disclosed beyond being called a ‘lower body injury’ by Ole Miss ahead of the Lindenwood game last weekend.
