Ole Miss, after an uninspiring opening half of the 2024-25 season, carried over the woes from non-conference into its SEC opener. On Saturday, the Rebels were ousted at Oklahoma by a score of 86-70.
Though the sting of the loss will be tough to overcome, as will the hill to climb for Chris Beard’s squad to find its way in the NCAA Tournament conversation, one promising consolation prize in Norman was a breakout performance by Patton Pinkins. The true freshman, who is the son of Ole Miss assistant coach Al Pinkins, logged a game-best 25 points, hitting 9 of 11 field goals, four of which were from behind the arc.
Outside of Pinkins’ performance, and a few bright moments from veteran Malik Dia, who scored 17 points in the matchup, the Rebels (8-6, 0-1 SEC) were a victim of self-inflicted wounds, underscored by lengthy scoring droughts, and an Oklahoma (11-3, 1-0 SEC) squad that hit timely three-point shots to kill any momentum by the visitors.
A deep shot by Kezza Giffa kickstarted an atypical hot start by the Ole Miss offense, though Oklahoma went toe-for-toe with the Rebels in putting points on the board. At the 14:14 mark, Ole Miss took a 20-16 lead following a pair of free throws by Ilias Kamardine and a fast-break layup by the French guard following a steal. Then, a nearly eight-minute Ole Miss scoring drought gave Oklahoma a golden opportunity to reclaim the lead — and the Sooners did just that.
A pair of deep shots and a dunk by promising redshirt freshman Kuol Atak found Oklahoma leading 35-26 with 4:50 left in the opening frame. Then the Pinkins show began. Over a four-minute span, the freshman scored 11 points, allowing Ole Miss to knot things up 41-41 with under a minute remaining before the halftime buzzer. A Mohamed Wague dunk sent the game to the midway break with the Sooners leading 43-41.
Zxayvier Brown hit a quick three-pointer after the intermission to rebuild Oklahoma’s lead, but Ole Miss continued to counter. A triple by none other than Pinkins at the 16:29 mark got the Rebels back within two points on the scoreboard. Volleying between the two teams would persist for the next nine minutes of action.
With a little over seven minutes remaining in regulation, the home team imposed its will. A three-pointer by Brown and a myriad of free throws, along with a heads-up jumper off an inbound by Tre Davis, the brother of former Ole Miss guard Dre Davis, paved the way for Oklahoma to mount an 82-66 lead at the 2:26 mark. At that point, the game had slipped away from the Rebels, who had not been able to find any offensive rhythm down the stretch.
Oklahoma had five players score 10-plus points on Saturday as the Sooners were 52% from the floor as a team. Brown led that effort with 23 points. Wague had a double-double for the Sooners with 10 points and 15 rebounds. Dia was Ole Miss’ rebounding leader with six. The Sooners were much better down low, grabbing seven more boards and scoring 18 more points in the paint than their foe.
Ole Miss really lost track of the game when shots from behind the arc stopped falling. The Rebels hit nine deep shots in the first 20 minutes of action but were a daunting 1 of 11 from 3-point range after the half. AJ Storr, specifically, struggled going 0 for 4 from deep.
The Rebels will continue their SEC gauntlet on Wednesday when No. 18 Arkansas rolls into Oxford. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT with the matchup airing on the SEC Network and participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations.