After drastically different results in their league openers, No. 23 Ole Miss and Arkansas meet Wednesday night in a Southeastern Conference contest in Fayetteville, Ark.
The Rebels (12-2, 1-0 SEC) moved up one spot in this week’s Associated Press poll following Saturday’s 63-51 home win against Georgia.
As it did in several previous games, head coach Chris Beard’s squad started slowly, trailing 28-26 at the half before stepping it up after the intermission.
Defense was key as the Rebels limited the visiting Bulldogs to just 29.3 percent shooting overall (17 of 58) and 11.1 percent from 3-point range (2 of 18). Mississippi collected 10 steals and 10 blocks.
Matthew Murrell and Jaemyn Brakefield scored 15 points apiece to lead the Rebels.
“The second half was pretty clean basketball,” Beard said. “You beat them by 14, we scored 37 and held the ball late. We didn’t have any special performances tonight. … We just played really hard as a team and played some great defense.”
Sean Pedulla paces Ole Miss with 14.1 points per game followed by Jaylen Murray (12.5), Murrell (12.0) and Dre Davis (10.8).
Meanwhile, Arkansas head coach John Calipari is looking for his squad to rebound — literally — following Saturday’s 76-52 setback at No. 1 Tennessee.
Arkansas could not do much well on either end of the court against the Volunteers, but Calipari was absolutely astounded by his Hogs’ inability to rebound the basketball in the lopsided contest.
“I can’t remember the last time I had a team get beat by 30 rebounds,” said Calipari, though the 52-29 margin was not quite that amount. “And so we’ve got to do some soul-searching. … Aren’t you like, ‘How did you only get beat by (24)?’ It could’ve been 50.”
That rhetorical question seemed to nag the Arkansas bench boss, who admitted he probably made a mistake by not having a pre-game shootaround. The Razorbacks finished 6 of 29 from deep (20.7 percent).
“They had more offensive rebounds (24) than we had (defensive) rebounds (20),” Calipari said. “All I kept saying in the second half was, ‘Let’s get it to single digits.’ We do something good, they get an offensive rebound. … It has nothing to do with anything but rebounding.”
Calipari warned it would be a tough road ahead.
“We’ve got work to do,” he said. “We know we’re not as good as the No. 1 team in the country. In this league, every game you play is going to be a hard game. Every one.”
Adou Thiero tops the Razorbacks with 16.9 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game. Boogie Fland averages 15.6 points and 5.9 assists and D.J. Wagner contributes 10.4 points per contest.
Wednesday’s matchup will be the only regular-season meeting this season.
Arkansas is 52-34 all-time against Ole Miss and has won nine of the past 11 games. The Rebels rolled to a 77-51 win last January in Oxford, Miss.
–Field Level Media
