Ole Miss continues to win games but Chris Beard is frustrated with the way they are happening

The Ole Miss men’s basketball team is still undefeated on the season after beating Mount Saint Mary’s on Tuesday night but Chris Beard is not pleased with the manner in which the wins are coming.

Following the Rebels 77-68 win over the Mountaineers the first-year head coach expressed his displeasure in some aspects of the game. A game in Beard’s eyes that should have been in his team’s back pocket long before the final buzzer sounded.

“I expect us to play Ole Miss basketball,” Beard said. “I don’t expect us to make every shot. I don’t expect everything go our way. Guys are going to make mistakes and basketball’s no different than life. I just expect that we’re all on the same page in terms of what we’re trying to get done and I didn’t think that was the case tonight.”

Ole Miss (8-0) struggled in the early going, trailing by a couple of baskets in the opening moments of the game and even gave up a five-point lead before taking the game back over and leading the final 27 minutes.

Tuesday’s games was the fifth win for Ole Miss by a single-digit margin. A 10-point win over Alabama State in the season opener, an 11-point win over Eastern Washington and last week’s 20-point win over North Carolina State the only comfortable victories.

Saturday’s three-point win over Memphis is not a shocking result as a close game was expected between the Ole Miss and the Tigers, but Beard was looking for more against the Mountaineers.

“Night’s like tonight were not the step forward that we needed,” Beard said. “We had an opportunity tonight to show that we could respond from a great week last week. To show that we could overcome some adversity, whether it’s finals week or not going to be the sold out crowd because the students are studying. …We didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. Even within the game we had chances to blow the game open.”

Once again the stat sheet was not kind to Ole Miss and a reason Mount Saint Mary’s stayed in the game.

Another double-digit turnover night for the Rebels with 13 that led to 16 Mountaineer points. Ole Miss did score 18 points off 12 Mount Saint Mary’s turnovers.

In the rebound department the Mountaineers out-rebounded the Rebels 37-36 and won the offensive rebound battle 15-8, a common trend through the first eight games of the season.

With two players at 7-feet and taller Ole Miss lost the points in the paint battle, 36-34. That is not all on Moussa Cisse and Jamarion Sharp but their presence down low should be able to at least deter a team from nearly 35 points.

“I just think we’re kind of robbing banks right now,” Beard said. “We’re not getting caught but we’re robbing a bank and eventually we’re going to get caught. Our team’s just got to show more maturity and more consistency.

“It just comes down to mistakes and not basketball mistakes. A lot of our stuff right now is just lack of discipline. I think before you can ever start to talk about discipline is are we all on the same page? Do we all have the same expectations? Are we all trying to get done what we’re doing. I don’t know. These are questions you should ask the players. Maybe they’re happy winning games by 10 points. Maybe they’re happy beating teams on the buzzer. I’m not.”

Ole Miss hits the road for its next two games with its second true road game of the season on Sunday at Central Florida followed by a trip to San Antonio on December 16 to play California in the Hall of Fame Series.