Ole Miss has gotten the proverbial monkey off its back after dropping its first two conference games. On Saturday, the tide turned for the Rebels (9-7, 1-2 SEC), who took down Missouri (12-4, 2-1 SEC) 76-69 in front of a home crowd.
Chris Beard’s crew was led by a two-headed dragon in AJ Storr and Malik Dia versus the Tigers. Storr had a breakout performance with a game-high 26 points while Dia had a double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds, fueling the red and blue in a much-needed victory.
The Rebels found themselves behind the eight-ball early, with Missouri shooting red-hot from deep. After hitting five shots from behind the three-point arc, the Tigers found themselves leading 22-12 with 12:19 on the first-half clock. A much-needed boost in the form of a Travis Perry triple followed by two post-flagrant one foul free throws by the Kentucky transfer set up an Ole Miss run.
Storr took the torch from Perry, scoring the Rebels’ next 15 points and putting the red and blue up 32-29 with 1:36 until the halftime buzzer. Both teams traded blows the rest of the way, with Dia and Missouri’s Mark Mitchell exchanging deep shots to end the half. Ole Miss took a 37-36 lead into the intermission.
“I thought we had great poise. We kept talking about [how] it’s a long game. Missouri is really talented. They play in spurts like all great teams do. We kept trying to encourage the guys not to look at the scoreboard. Let’s just think about each possession,” Beard said after the game. “I thought we had really good poise tonight. As you could imagine, you get down in the first half at home, things can flip on you pretty quickly. But I did think the guys were poised tonight more than anything.”
Missouri reclaimed the lead early in the second half, courtesy of a fastbreak dunk by Jayden Stone. Eduardo Klafke became an unsung hero for Ole Miss, knocking down a jumper and flushing a dunk on a fast-break to put the Rebels back on top by three points with 15:56 left in regulation. But Missouri would not go away, prompting a back-and-forth slugfest between the two teams for the next 11 minutes.
Back-to-back jumpers by Storr and Dia allowed the Rebels to claim a 66-62 advantage at the 3:43 mark of the second half. A pair of consecutive misses from deep by Missouri set up a lob from Ilias Kamardine to Augusto Cassia to build on the Ole Miss lead. Cassia, who checked in the game late after Corey Chest fouled out, was fouled on the basket and made his free throw to put Ole Miss up 69-62 at a pivotal moment of the game.
The Tigers, with a tall task ahead and little time to climb the mountain, did not waver. A layup by Trent Pierce with 1:26 left in the half cut the deficit to three points. With the game on the line, Cassia delivered what was essentially a pair of game-saving plays to effectively secure a home win.
The Butler transfer, with under a minute on the clock, reeled in an offensive rebound to keep an Ole Miss drive alive, then had a putback off a missed layup by Storr to give the Rebels a two-possession lead. From there, the Rebels closed things out at the free-throw line, making five of their six shots at the charity stripe to rubber-stamp the win.
Missouri was led by Mark Mitchell, who had a team-best 20 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists, along with Jayden Stone, who scored 16 points. As a team, the Tigers outshot the Ole Miss from the floor, connecting on 49% of its shots compared to the Rebels’ 43% make rate. However, the free-throw line proved to be far more advantageous to the home team. Ole Miss was 15-19 from the stripe, whereas Missouri was an underwhelming 12-24 when gifted free shots.
“We just continue to be a team that’s going to be ‘strength in numbers.’ We’ve got to make sure depth continues to be an ally and doesn’t go the other way. And to do that, you’ve got to have really high-character, unselfish people,” Beard said. “Let’s talk about [Augusto Cassia]. I don’t know if he got in the game in the first half. Corey Chest was playing hard and physical. Corey fouls out of the game. ‘Gusto, are you ready?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ There’s no sulk or victim mode. He goes in the game and played really well.”
Tiger head coach Dennis Gates attributed the poor free-throw shooting as part of the reason his team fell short on Saturday, while also acknowledging that Ole Miss is much more talented than its record suggests and is led by two “all-league players” in Dia and Storr.
Ole Miss also had Missouri beat in turnovers, coughing the ball up six fewer times than its foe and scoring nine more points off of giveaways. The Rebels were also much better from the bench, outscoring the Tigers 41-10, though Storr, a traditional starter, accounted for a bulk of those points.
Ole Miss will hit the road on Wednesday and take on a solid Georgia team. The game will tip off in Athens at 6 p.m. CT and will air on ESPNU, along with participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations.