The Ole Miss Men’s Basketball team lost to Vanderbilt 63-61 in the final game of what was a brutal regular season for the Rebels.
Ole Miss had a chance to win the game, or send it to overtime, in the final seconds but once again failed to pull through in a game that was there for the taking. Matthew Murrell and Austin Crowley led the Rebels in with 15 points, while Nysier Brooks scored 12 in his final game in Oxford.
The first half saw both teams trading baskets and leads until Ole Miss grabbed a lead with 4:16 left in the half and held onto it for the remainder of the half. The Rebels took a 33-26 lead into halftime after a James White buzzer-beating three.
The lead would not sustain itself for long, as Vanderbilt would open the half on a 9-2 run to tie the game at 35. The Rebels would eventually fall behind and trailed by seven with just over four minutes left in the game. Murrell scored eight points in the final minutes to shrink the Commodore lead to two.
The Rebels had many opportunities to win the game, but just couldn’t get it done. They had two possessions in the final seconds where they could have tied or won the game, but they were unable to capitalize. Ole Miss finishes the regular season with a record of 13-18 and 4-14 in SEC play.
“We’ve been involved with a lot of these games right here, one-possession game at the end, and if you look out through college basketball, you’ll see plays being made at the end of games, and we just weren’t able to,” Head Coach Kermit Davis said. “Our inability to start second halves has been our biggest thing the whole year and nobody has emphasized and tried to do things to help us get better in the first five minutes of the second half.”
Ole Miss will play in the SEC tournament as the No. 13 team. The Rebels will need to win five games in as many days next week if they wish to win the SEC championship and make the NCAA tournament. The Rebels will play their first-round game against the No. 12 Missouri Tigers on Wednesday, March 9. Tipoff in Nashville will be at 5:00 p.m. CST.
