Ole Miss men’s basketball loses its first half moment, falls 75-66 to Kentucky

Going into Tuesday’s men’s basketball matchup in Oxford, both Ole Miss and Kentucky were coming off losses and needed a win — Kentucky to keep its March Madness hopes alive and Ole Miss to save its season.

The Rebels played their best half of basketball in the first period against the Wildcats. They made shots that kept them within striking distance and also defended reigning consensus national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe to five points in the first 20 minutes.

Freshman guard Amaree Abram put Ole Miss on his back at the beginning of the game as he scored nine early points to give the Rebels a spark. He would finish the half with 11 points to lead all scorers.

The Rebels played at a faster pace than they have all season, and their speed was a big reason why they ended up tied with the Wildcats at 32 at halftime.

This kind of half — whenOle Miss comes out swinging and goes into halftime with a lead — has happened a couple of times this season, and each of those games has ended in a loss. So the question, once again, was could Ole Miss replicate its first-half performance enough to come out with a win.

Many observers thought Tshiebwe would dominate, but this was not the case as Ole Miss played him tough in the first half. He still finished the game with 14 points and 11 rebounds, but it was Antonio Reeves with 27 points off the bench who led Kentucky to this win.

Reeves finished the game missing only four shots while shooting 86% from three on seven attempts.

Matthew Murrell, who has been Ole Miss’ leading scorer this season , missed his third-straight game with an injury, and the offense has not looked the same since he went down. In the second half, when Ole Miss needed a goto scorer, the shots did not fall.

That is not to take away from Abram’s 17-point performance and consider how good the offense could look with Murrell and Abram in the same lineup consistently.

A silver lining from this game is Ole Miss went toe to toe with a college basketball blue blood for 34 minutes. It was encouraging for fans to see their team compete and never give up.

Ole Miss’ schedule for the next four games goes as follows: at Vanderbilt, at Georgia, home versus South Carolina and at Florida. These are four winnable games considering how each of those teams has performed recently, so stay tuned into Rebel basketball as they look to pick up some conference wins.