By Billy Watkins
Two questions will always hang over this season’s Ole Miss men’s basketball team, which lost in overtime Saturday afternoon to No. 17 Arkansas, 93-90, in the SEC Tournament’s semifinal round in Nashville.
First, how did the 15th-seeded Rebels make such a brilliant four-game run? According to OptaSTATS, no Division I team seeded 15th or worse ever reached a semifinal.
The other question: Where was this level of play all season? Since Jan. 20, the Rebels were 1-12 entering the tournament. They won just four regular-season SEC games. Where was the brilliant shooting, the smothering defense and the gritty rebounding the team displayed this week?
We will never know the answers.
The Rebels finished 15-20 overall. Still, head coach Chris Beard was emotional postgame when he talked about this team.
“We didn’t quit,” Beard said. “Our home fans know that. The national media probably just sees the scores and the win-loss record. This team competed all the way to the end.
“The speech I just gave them in the locker room after the game is one of the hardest things you have to do each season. And everybody has to do it except one team. Today was a different speech than the one I envisioned because of the way we made a run here in Nashville. Just so happy and proud of the players. Tough times pass. Tough people last. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team that exemplifies that more.”
He added: “Our guys played with a lot of courage today, played the game to win. We just needed one more minute. We just ran out of time.”
Ole Miss was playing its fourth game in four days, but it didn’t seem to faze the players.
AJ Storr led Ole Miss with 24 points. Malik Dia added 16, Patton Pinkins 15 and Ilias Kamardine 13. James Scott led the team with nine rebounds.
Arkansas was led by Meleek Thomas with 29 points, and Darius Acuff, Jr. had 24.
The Razorbacks outscored the Rebels 23-11 at the free-throw line and shot 31 freebies compared to Ole Miss’ 14.
Beard brought Storr and Dia to the postgame press conference.
“I really appreciate AJ coming to play for us at Ole Miss,” Beard said of the senior who played for three different schools before landing at Ole Miss. (St. John’s, Wisconsin and Kansas). “It wasn’t the overall season we both envisioned. AJ is one of the most misunderstood stories in college basketball. I’ve never coached a more loyal, poised, even-headed guy. I have a ton of respect for AJ . . . I’ll always have his back forever.
“Same with Malik Dia. I appreciate what he did two years ago — choosing to come play for us when he had other options. At the time, we weren’t coming off an NCAA Tournament but he believed in the vision. He was a big part of our Sweet Sixteen team last year — arguably the best team in Ole Miss history.
“I coached Malik really hard and the outside world saw that. But don’t get it twisted. I always had his back and he had mine.
“This season was a journey. Ups and downs. True character comes out through adversity And we had our share. But to finish the season the way we did speaks highly of everybody in our locker room, including these two seniors.”
Ole Miss defeated Texas, Georgia and No. 2-seeded Alabama to reach the semifinals.
In the four games, Storr scored 78 points — 10th most in SEC Tournament history. Dia added 70 and Kamardine 56. James Scott’s 41 rebounds are among the Top 10 all-time in the SEC Tournament.
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