Despite a career-high scoring outing for Jarkel Joiner, the Ole Miss Men’s Basketball team couldn’t slow down a red-hot Alabama offense and fell to the Crimson Tide at home 97-83.
Ole Miss started the game hot with an early offensive explosion that lifted them to a nine-point lead in the game’s opening minutes. Joiner knocked down his first three shots, including a pair of threes, and the Ole Miss defensive pressure forced the Tide into some early turnovers which gave the Rebels a lot of early momentum.
Despite the hot start, the Alabama offense soon began to take advantage of the holes in the backside of the Ole Miss defense and was able to find an open man on the perimeter on several possessions which often led to easy scores.
Relying on the shooting of Joiner, Ole Miss hung in with the Tide for most of what was an offensive showcase for both teams in the first half. Alabama took its first lead of the game with 5:18 left in the first half and never looked back from there.
Ole Miss finished off the half very poorly, allowing Alabama to close on a 22-4 run as they failed to score a point of their own in the last two minutes and 46 seconds. Alabama’s standout guard Jaden Shackelford was as good as advertised, scoring 19 in the first half to lift Alabama to a 49-38 lead at the break.
Several times this season, Kermit Davis has expressed his frustrations with his team’s inability to finish off the first half strongly, and once again the Rebels closed out the half about as poorly as they could have. This proved to be a big difference in the outcome of the game.
Ole Miss began the second half with a 9-0 run to trim the Alabama lead to two, but the Tide settled down and began making shots consistently while Ole Miss saw its offense sputter during several important stretches of the second half. This allowed Alabama to cruise with a comfortable lead for the remainder of the game.
While Ole Miss’s defense collapsed at times, it wasn’t a particularly terrible defensive outing for them. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the opponent, and this game was one of those times. Alabama shot an impressive 60% from the floor and 64% from beyond the arch. Finding some easy jumpers early in the game allowed Alabama to develop some early confidence shooting the ball and that confidence stuck with them throughout the entirety of the contest.
The Rebels also put up a strong offensive performance on the back of Joiner, who finished with a career-high 33 points. However, it proved to be no match for the firepower of Alabama. Shackelford finished the game with 30 points for the Tide, draining eight three-pointers on 13 attempts.
This Ole Miss team isn’t going to win many shootouts, they’re just not built for that type of game. It’s a team that wants to keep the score around the 50s and 60s and this game was far beyond their comfort zone. They have to find a way to stop opponents from scoring at high volumes or they won’t ever have much of a chance against teams in this league.
Their next action will be in Columbia, Missouri, on Feb. 12 where they will face a Missouri team that dominated them in Oxford earlier in the year. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.
