Old issues still linger for Ole Miss men's basketball in season opening win over Alabama State
There is newness around the Ole Miss men’s basketball program and the Chris Beard era officially got kicked off on Monday, but some old problems are still lingering around the SJB Pavilion.
Ole Miss defeated Alabama State, 69-59, but for 40 minutes it felt like watching the 2022 squad with the struggles on offense from scoring to turnovers continuing to happen.
Next steps for Matthew Murrell and Jaemyn Brakefield were not evident in game one of the 2023-24 season Brakefield finishing with two points. Murrell scored 16 points but his shot selection was less than desirable at times, shooting 33.3 percent (6-of-18).
Ole Miss (1-0) shot 36.8 percent as a team (25-of-68) in what was not the strong start out of the gate in Beard’s first game that most were probably expecting heading into Monday’s opener.
Offense was the issue last season as defense could make games manageable enough for chances to pull out victories. Monday saw shades of that same problem until TJ Caldwell scored 10 points in a four-minute span in the middle of the second half to make the score more comfortable.
Caldwell finished with 15 points with 12 of them coming in the final 12 minutes.
Those first 28 minutes brings cause for concern despite it being the first game of the season. One glaring thing was the three-point shooting where Ole Miss finished 24 percent (7-for-29) behind the line
“We got some good looks from three and the ball wasn’t going in. We are a team that wants to shoot the three in transition,” Beard said. “Weakest part of any defense is early or late, so those are shots we’re going to keep taking. Our guys put a lot of time in. I have a lot of confidence. I’ll predict we’re going to be up here sooner or later, talking about a 55-60 percent three-point shooting night percentage-wise.”
Free-throw shooting was also a struggle with the Rebels going 48 percent from the charity stripe, hitting 12 of 25 attempts.
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Beard’s compared his Ole Miss debut to that of a game being played in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Hornets (0-1) were a pesky team, especially on offense despite shooting less than 28 percent from the floor.
Defense could never get a kill, which Beard classifies as three consecutive stops when the opponent has the ball. Alabama State managed to find the basket at least once out every three trips.
Mixed with sluggish play on their part, Beard likened Monday’s game to those played in the middle of March.
“I was very similar, kind of eerily similar to a NCAA Tournament game,” Beard said. “At halftime when I came in (to the locker room) I don’t know if the guys were expecting like an outburst and all that. …I just had to calm the guys down and explain to them, because many of our guys have not played in the tournament, like, ‘This is a lot like the first round. We have a good season, we want to win in the fist round. We’ve had a great offseason, we’d like to win the first game but the other team is well coached and a good team, as well.”
Game one of the Beard era and the 2023-24 season is in the books with plenty to clean up and improve on but the turnaround gets shorter now than preseason camp with Eastern Washington coming to Oxford on Friday at 7 p.m. CT.
