Ole Miss Men’s Basketball defeated the University of Louisiana Monroe Warhawks 86-65 on Friday, Nov. 7 to move to 2-0.
The Rebels controlled the game from the jump. Head coach Chris Beard opted to stick with the same starting five as last week – guards AJ Storr, Ilias Kamardine and Travis Perry, along with forwards James Scott and
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The offense channeled through Kamardine. The former French professional player demonstrated excellent passing. Early in the first half, he slowed up in transition to thread a tight pass to Dia for an easy basket.
Kamardine made two other passes which could have been assists — the first a flick to forward James Scott, who missed an uncontested layup, and the second to Perry, who failed to connect on an open three. He still finished the game with seven assists.
In a postgame press conference, Kamardine credited the coaching staff with helping him adapt from the French league to college basketball, which tends to be more fast-paced.
“The staff do a really good job (helping) me be comfortable on the court,” Kamardine said.
In a span of a little over one minute in the first half, the guard scored seven points and added an assist. He first tipped the ball away from a ULM guard and slammed home a dunk on the other end. ULM took a timeout; afterwards, the Rebels broke into a full-court press, and Kamardine stole the inbounds pass and scored a layup.
The Rebels pressed once again. ULM turned the ball over due to a 10-second violation, and on the next possession Kamardine hit a three-pointer. After Ole Miss forced another stop, he drove in the lane and tossed a no-look pass to forward Augusto Cassiá for a dunk.
The major scoring threat for the Rebels was Storr, who has emerged as a knockdown shooter. The guard shot only 29.1% from three at Kansas last season, but through two games this season, he has shot 8-of-11 from deep.
Obviously, this is a small sample size, yet he shoots the ball in rhythm and with confidence, which was especially apparent on the step-back three he buried in the middle of the first half. At SEC Media Day, Beard said that for this team to be at its best, Storr would need to “impact every possession.”
In addition to his three-pointers, Storr made several tough drives to the basket to draw fouls. He finished with 19 points; 12 of these came from three-pointers, and five were free throws. He also showed off his mid-range abilities with a fade-away turnaround in the short corner.
Perry’s cold streak remained a theme. The Eddyville, Ky., native — who holds the record for most career points in Kentucky high school basketball history — shot 0-of-5 from behind the arc. Despite a strip-steal in the first half, he failed to impress in other facets of the game, too, finishing with only two rebounds and no assists.
Though the Rebels dominated in the first half, going into halftime with a 47-28 lead, the second half was more even. The Warhawks scored 37 points, and the Rebels scored 39. While the starters saw limited minutes in the second half, Beard was still not pleased with the team’s performance.
“I thought in the first half, we played some good basketball. In the second half, we played to the level of our opponent, which we’re not looking for,” Beard said in a postgame press conference.
Kamardine emphasized that the team needs to be able to compete for the entire game if they wish to beat Memphis on Tuesday.
“Like Coach said, we played great in the first half. Now we need to play a 40-minute game,” Kamardine said. “We have three days to work before Memphis, and if (we) want to compete against Memphis, we have to play better.”
