Ole Miss men’s basketball suffered its 10th loss of the season Saturday night against No. 15 Vanderbilt when AJ Storr and Malik Dia missed game-tying three-pointers in the game’s final seconds.
Adding to the frustration is that it was another close loss. Of the Rebels’ 10 losses, only one was truly a blowout and that was the 76-62 loss to NC State before the Christmas break. Keeping things close is becoming the Rebels’ trademark for this season.
“The story of our season is being in games like this,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said. “We need one more break down the stretch. One more play in the first half or early in the second half. I thought our guys played with a lot of courage tonight.”
On its current three-game losing streak, Ole Miss has been in contention to win until late.
Against Auburn, the Rebels trailed by five points with 1:40 left. Against Kentucky, they trailed by five with less than 35 seconds in the game.
Saturday night against Vanderbilt was closest of the three and for a moment looked like it would be going into overtime. Storr certainly thought his three-pointer was going in.
“Yeah, it felt good. Just came off the rim a little strong. Just missed it,” Storr said after the game. “Frustrating. Obviously want to win every game, but still got some games left. Still will get to play them again, too. So, got to move on now.”
Vanderbilt managed to stay ahead by getting to the charity stripe and making most of its free throws.
“it’s frustrating getting beat when your defense holds serve but the other team’s making free throws,” Beard said. “Without seeing the film, I would have to see if there are things we can do better with our discipline or if we had some misfortune with some of those 50-50 calls.”
However, the Rebels did put themselves in the position of needing to come-from-behind to win after a rough first half. They shot just 38.1% from the field and made one three-pointer in the first half. The bigger problem though was the nine first half turnovers.
“The difference was turnovers. We had nine at halftime. Even if you score on three or four of those possessions, it’s a tied game,” Beard said. “We studied them quickly and a lot were casual plays. Some were misfortune. We dove on the floor for a loose ball that counted as a turnover. I thought our guys did a good job in the second half. The number one objective was to take care of the ball, and we got that done.”
Ole Miss now finds itself in a familiar spot: close enough to win, but still searching for the late-game execution that turns heartbreak into momentum.
Beard’s group continues to show fight, and the opportunities are still there with plenty of SEC play remaining.
But if the Rebels want this season to become something more than a collection of near-misses, they’ll have to start finishing the kinds of games they keep putting themselves in position to win.
