'Softness' plagued No. 19 Ole Miss in its loss to No. 22 Mississippi State

With a chance to solidify their NCAA Tournament chances and eliminating the chance at a losing conference record No. 19 Ole Miss men’s basketball looked anything like a team fighting for a top seed.

Mississippi State beat the Rebels, 81-71, inside SJB Pavilion to complete the season sweep. Ole Miss (19-7, 8-5 Southeastern Conference) saw its three-game winning streak snapped in the process.

The Rebels led by as many as eight points midway through the first half but then the Bulldogs (18-7, 6-6) outscored them 25-11 to close out the last eight-plus minutes for a seven-point lead into halftime.

From there it was all Mississippi State.

The matchup with the Bulldogs is a bad one for Ole Miss as it cannot match the size which played out accordingly. The Rebels were out-rebounded 48-36 and 14-7 on offensive boards with Mississippi State getting 16 second chance points.

The question of Mississippi State being the aggressor on Saturday was asked to Rebels head coach Chris Beard postgame.

“I mean, that’s what rebounding is,” Beard said. “That’s what finishing around the basket, demanding that the refs call the fouls. I just thought we had a lot of softness to us today and that’s not easy for me to say as the coach. That’s one thing we pride ourselves in. We’re not going to win every game but we do have an objective that we’re not going to put an effort out there like I thought we put out there today.”

Jaylen “JuJu” Murrary led the team with 14 points and Sean Pedulla finished with 13 points. Jaemyn Brakefield scored 10 points to join as the only three Rebels to finish in double figures.

Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans felt his team was not playing as well as Ole Miss heading into Saturday’s game. Pedulla disagreed with that assessment, stating he felt there has been a “decline” since the second half of the Kentucky game.

Beard sent all five starters to the post game press conference in what is a first for him, and for any head coach at Ole Miss in quite some time.

“I feel like it’s been on a steady decline and when you play a team that’s playing for a lot right now and playing as competitive as they are, it’s going to show,” Pedulla said.

When pressed for why he thought there was a decline and what the cause was, Pedulla was blunt.

“Just being complacent. Not fixing the issues that we got to fix,” Pedulla said. “Rebounding has been a struggle for us all year and it’s continuing to be a struggle and we got to turn it into something that’s a positive.”

The Ole Miss heroes of the past two games were quiet against the Bulldogs. Guard Dre Davis and forward Malik Dia combined for 15 points and 11 rebounds. Dia played for only 17 minutes, sitting a big chunk of the second half.

Beard put in Robert Cowhard to sub out Matthew Murrell in what felt like a proving point, coaching decision move.

“Some of the substitutions to tonight were to literally get people out there that were playing with a sense of pride for Ole Miss,” Beard said. “Understand people paid a lot of people paid money, real money, to come to this game. We’re not going to make every shot. You’re not going to win every game but you can absolutely control what you can control and that’s effort, body language, competitiveness. We were lacking a lot of those things.”

Ole Miss gets its bye week and will return to the court next Saturday at Vanderbilt.