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Ole Miss rings in new year with South Carolina in SEC opener
OXFORD – It’s not uncommon for Ole Miss to enter SEC play with momentum.This time the Rebels face the league opener with shakier confidence and five losses.
Ole Miss (7-5) will ring in the new year – almost – with South Carolina (9-3) in a 5 p.m. tip today at The Pavilion. The Gamecocks reached the Final Four last year but return only two starters, forwards Chris Silva and Maik Kotsar.
They have lost to two teams that have beaten Ole Miss. Virginia Tech topped the Gamecocks 86-67 in Columbia in a hurricane relief exhibition, and Illinois State defeated South Carolina 69-65 on a neutral court in mid-November.
The Gamecocks have also lost to Clemson and Temple.The Rebels have five pre-SEC losses for only the second time in coach Andy Kennedy’s 12 seasons, the first time since 2008-2009.“I feel like our team is where it needs to be,” said Ole Miss guard Terence Davis, who leads the Rebels and ranks sixth in the SEC with 16.1 points a game. “We have a lot of things we need to work on, but our mindset is where it needs to be.
”The Rebels showed a glimmer of hope in their last game, an 82-59 win over Bradley nine days ago. That’s when Kennedy said he saw his players do a better job of cutting off dribble-drive penetration.
Bigs’ big lesson “It’s all about the point of attack,” he said. “We finally got our bigs to understand you can’t allow a guard to get downhill. It’s going to cause unnecessary rotations. We did a good job of that.
”That rotations have at times left opposing shooters free. Ole Miss is last in the SEC in 3-point field goal defense at 37.2 percent.South Carolina hasn’t always taken advantage of open shots. The Gamecocks are hitting 33.3 percent behind the arc.Kennedy is hopeful his team will play with greater intensity against the SEC.
“I do think we’re beginning to understand the thin line between winning and misery. Unfortunately for us we’ve been on the wrong side of that too many times to this point. It really is a thin line, a play here, a play there.”
SOURCE: Parrish Alford. Daily Journal. 30 Dec 2017.
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