Ole Miss wraps up regular season with loss at No. 5 Florida as SEC Tournament awaits
The Ole Miss men’s basketball team got a signature win against No. 4 Tennessee on Wednesday for its senior night. On Saturday it was No. 5 Florida that was able to send its seniors out with a victory.
In a 90-71 defeat the Rebels looked to not have the same magic, effort, hustle, what have you, in Gainesville that it had in its win over the Volunteers.
Florida is considered the best team in the country and it showed it heading in to next week’s Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville as the 2 Seed.
For Ole Miss (21-9, 10-8 SEC) it wrapped up a regular season where progress was show in Chris Beard’s second year in Oxford, but the Gators showed where the deficiencies are need addressed once the offseason begins later this Spring.
“You have to have defense in the Month of March. So, our plan was not to have this game in the 90s tonight,” Beard said. “We missed a lot of good shots around the basketball. Our finish percentage in the first half was really poor. …In the second half our defense was just nonexistent.”
The win over Tennessee made Saturday’s game a freebie, of sorts, though of course the Rebels want to win each one. Though how they lost is probably not what Chris Beard was expected, who was animated at times on the sideline and then seen reserved on the bench as if waiting out the final minutes so he could move on quickly from this one.
Ole Miss got to within three points early in the second half but from there the Gators finished the final 19 minutes on a 50-34 run.
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Florida (27-4, 14-4) outscored the Rebels 32-22 in the paint and 19-11 in second chance points. The offense rebounds were dead even at 15 a piece, though the Gators won the overall rebound battle, 48-36.
Gators guard Clayton Walter, Jr. led all scorers with 23 points while guard Sean Pedulla finished with 22 points to lead Ole Miss.
After going off for 19 points in the second half against the Volunteers senior forward Jaemyn Brakefield followed it up with nine points and three rebounds, missing his lone three-point attempt. Jaylen ‘JuJu’ Murray scored 12 points, Malik Dia finished with nine points and Matthew Murrell scored seven points.
“We just took a pretty good licking by one of the best teams in the country,” Beard said. “So we got to have short-term memory and get fired up to play in Nashville.”
Ole Miss is going to be either the 7 or 8 Seed in next week’s SEC Tournament, earning a first round bye and starting on Thursday. The bracket will be announced later on Saturday after the Texas – Oklahoma game concludes.
