The Ole Miss Men’s Basketball team lost to Texas A&M 76-66 in Oxford on Saturday and solidified a losing regular season with two games left to play.
Matthew Murrell led all scoring with a 20-point outing, but it wasn’t nearly enough to give the Rebels a chance to win. The Aggies started out hot, going on a 14-0 run during the first three minutes and 46 seconds of the game and hitting their first six shots. They shot an outstanding 67.9% from the floor in the first half. The Rebels struggled and scored just 23 points while committing 10 turnovers.
Ole Miss found themselves down 46-23 at the half, and despite going on a late second-half surge that got them within reach of a comeback, the Rebels weren’t able to overcome the first-half dominance of Texas A&M and fell to 13-16 and 4-12 in the SEC.
The Aggies had a 54% field goal percentage for the game while Ole Miss shot 40%. The Rebels won the second half by 13 points, but the first half deficit proved to be too much. Texas A&M’s Tyrece Radford had a very impressive game. He scored 19 points and shot 8 for 12 from the floor while knocking down two three pointers and collecting seven rebounds.
“I take full responsibility. That was embarrassing. I didn’t come to Ole Miss to put that kind of product on the floor,” Head Coach Kermit Davis said. “We’ve fought some different things, but we have enough to be competitive, and we weren’t today. I commend the guys in the last 15 minutes. We fought and made it more respectable. Their style of play is a juggernaut for us. It just hits us in every area. We’ll have to regroup and play a great Kentucky team this Tuesday, so we’ll watch this tape tomorrow and get right onto Kentucky tomorrow afternoon.”
The Rebels have just two games left in the regular season before they head to Nashville for the SEC tournament. Their next action will be in Lexington, Kentucky, on Tuesday, March 1 where they will take on No. 6 Kentucky. Tipoff is set for 6:00 p.m. CST.
